According to CoinDesk, several US House bills are aiming to prevent the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country. However, a key Democrat, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), has reintroduced a bill that would establish a CBDC pilot program. The House Financial Services Committee's panel on digital assets is set to discuss the idea of a digital dollar on Thursday, with the hearing agenda linked to a series of Republican bills that would ban CBDCs.
Lynch's legislation calls for a pilot program in the Treasury Department, which is expressly forbidden by the Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act pushed by Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.V.), another member of the committee. A US digital dollar would be issued by the Federal Reserve and operate as a purely digital counterpart to the nation's hard currency. However, there are many questions about how transactions would be handled, tracked, and potentially limited by regulators.
Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Michael Barr recently stated that the idea is in the very early stages of research and that the central bank would not move forward without approval from the White House and an authorizing bill from Congress. This would require a significant degree of Republican support, which is currently unlikely.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), a strong crypto ally and majority whip in the House leadership, has reintroduced his own bill with 50 cosponsors to prevent a retail CBDC in the US. He argues that if a government-issued CBDC is not designed to be open, permissionless, and private like cash, it would become a surveillance tool that undermines the American way of life. Despite these concerns, the Biden administration has not yet proposed a CBDC in any form, although Fed and Treasury Department officials have said they are looking into the technology, which has been rapidly adopted by several countries, including China.