Financial Freedom in America

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, today and this week, House Republicans are advocating for the American people and protecting them from bureaucratic overreach. We are pushing legislation that will protect Americans' right to financial privacy and create a regulatory framework for digital asset markets so American industries can thrive.

I am grateful to the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees for prioritizing this important issue, and I am grateful to have my friend and colleague from Arkansas here to share more about his work on this.

I think one interesting element to this is we had a very strong approach and bill on this regulatory framework regarding these various digital assets. We garnered an incredibly strong bipartisan vote today.

I think it is important to recognize this is not a messaging bill in any way, shape, or form. We are trying to make sure we do the thing that we are elected to do, and that is take care of this type of very important work legislatively and not cede this power to the bureaucratic state and the regulators.

That is something that we accomplished here, and we are accomplishing this week. It is incredibly important to recognize that we are doing this through legislation and not just through an administrative state.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I will echo the comments on much of the financial services packages that we are putting on the floor this week. The gentleman's comment that this is a big deal, I would hope that folks could recognize that we are at a time where it is unknown. There are no rules in place for this innovation that is taking place in the financial market, and there has to be. It is good for every American, it is good for our economy, and it is good for our industries to be able to have that structure, and we are putting that forward today.

The big deal about this is that this is something that should pass as soon it goes over to the Senate. It has strong bipartisan support, and folks can recognize the importance of this moment. House Republicans are leading to make that happen and to make that possible. We are not just engaging in messaging bills on this type of stuff. This is legitimate, and it had a really, really strong vote today. It was not as strong, I might mention, from my Committee on Ways and Means with the tax package, but this is not a competition. It is not a competition.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague from the great State of Arkansas for his words, more so for being able to encapsulate what you all have accomplished with the Financial Services packages we are putting on this week. They are a very big deal, as was mentioned.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to sharing just a few thoughts of my own as we wrap up here.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his tireless work. These are meaty issues. They are hard for folks to truly understand, and it takes the real work of Congress to do stuff like this, so I thank the gentleman for his leadership there.

As I mentioned earlier, House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect consumers' and Americans' rights to financial privacy, values that I believe everyone can support. We witnessed that today with the strong bipartisan vote on this issue.

The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, also known as FIT21, will protect consumers and encourage innovation by creating a regulatory framework for digital asset markets through legislation, not through regulators.

One of the most common frustrations that I hear back in the First District of Utah is this concept of why does the administrative state have so much influence? Why is there so much executive overreach?

This isn't just geared toward one administration. They are very frustrated with pretty much all of President Biden's policies and his executive actions, whether it be the student loan repayment stuff that he is doing or the inability to implement solid policy at the border and all the protections that he removed there.

They are so frustrated at executive overreach in general, and I think you see that play out in why Congress, oftentimes, has such low approval ratings.

Today was a day that we are pushing back against that. We can always blame the administration, but part of it is that we have to look at ourselves and say what we are doing to find a path forward and to find a way to get something accomplished.

We have actually had several of these moments in this House majority, in this Republican majority, in this 118th Congress. Today was definitely one of those days.

We are making it so the executive branch is going to work the way they are supposed to. This legislation should go to the Senate. It should get a vote that will garner the same type of bipartisan support that it got here in the House today, and it should be signed into law.

As digital assets and blockchain technologies continue to develop, FIT21 takes a critical step toward market certainty for consumers and innovators. Rather than regulation by enforcement, FIT21 will establish clear regulatory lines between the SEC and CFTC, as well as ensure digital asset providers have a pathway to raise funds.

FIT21 would also protect consumers and the broader ecosystem through measures that establish transparent disclosure requirements, including requiring digital asset developers to provide information about a digital asset project's ownership and operational structure; creating a comprehensive registration system for digital asset institutions to serve customers in the market; and, three, ensuring that customer- facing digital asset exchanges and brokers provide disclosures to their customers and take steps to reduce those conflicts of interests, Mr. Speaker.

We have seen what regulatory certainty and pro-growth policies can do to help American industry thrive. I commend Chairman Thompson of the Agriculture Committee, Chairman McHenry of the Financial Services Committee, and members of both of those committees for their hard work on this important legislation. As we heard earlier from Mr. Hill, this is hard work. Actually finding consensus to move something forward is the tough work of Congress.

House Republicans are also leading efforts this week legislatively in supporting the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, which is critical to blocking Federal bureaucrats from creating a central bank digital currency. A CBDC could allow a China-like reality in which our financial system could be used against Americans as the government monitors transactions and tracks customer behaviors.

As I shared earlier today, implementing a central bank digital currency is simply un-American. There are few things that could totally infringe on our freedoms and autonomy more than currency. There are only a few things that could totally infringe on that more than a currency that can be closely tracked, withheld, and weaponized based on our behaviors, causes, and political leanings.

This bill ensures Congress maintains its authority over CBDCs so that if a CBDC were authorized, it will receive robust attention and vetting by elected officials.

Mr. Speaker, I can't stress enough that with the way that this digital currency is trending--and we see it from other nations--the ability to closely and quickly track directly offends our American right to privacy on this important aspect of our financial freedom.

Again, we are taking the steps today with the House Republican majority to find a path forward and do this the way that the Constitution envisioned we would actually work here, to find a way to make this into law and to actually address these issues.

It is a world that is, again, difficult to understand, and that is why this is such tough work. Again, I commend the members on the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees to get this right, put forth the legislation, receive the bipartisan support, send it over to the Senate, and, hopefully, get it passed into law soon.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who participated in this and for the successful week that we are having back here in our legislative session, the last one in the month of May. We look forward to advancing more key legislation tomorrow.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source