The federal government is looking to regulate crypto mining in the United States, and Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis isn’t happy about that.
Cynthia Lummis Wants to Leave Crypto Mining Alone
Since entering Congress in early 2021, Lummis (a republican) has widely been labeled as a friend to crypto given she’s invested in bitcoin before. She’s also developed a new bill that would carve out rules and regulations for establishing all future crypto bills in the U.S. in the future.
Crypto mining has long been at the center of controversy given how many people believe it’s not putting energy to good use. They all believe mining crypto is going to somehow bring planet Earth to an early end, and they would like to see crypto mining either cut out completely, or forced into a strict arena that controls how much energy is used and where that energy is sourced from. In other words, bitcoin miners need to be completely clean or make their exits.
Not long ago, a form of legislation known as the Crypto Asset Environmental Transparency Act was introduced on the U.S. Senate floor. The goal was to ensure all bitcoin miners within the U.S. remained fully transparent regarding where their energy came from. Lummis argued against the bill, claiming that crypto miners shouldn’t be subjected to such strict rules, especially since they aren’t applying to larger industries.
For example, while such a bill would require crypto miners to disclose all the details of their energy sources, the same would not be required of electric vehicle chargers, which are part of a much larger energy division in the U.S. Rebutting the bill, Lummis said:
If that EV charging station is powered by electricity from natural gas or coal, shouldn’t it also have the same monitoring that is being requested by this bill? Is it Congress’ job to decide whether an energy use is worthwhile or not?
Lummis currently has support from organizations such as the Bitcoin Mining Council, which recently announced that most of the companies mining crypto in the U.S. appear to use green energy such as hydroelectricity. In a recent report, the enterprise said the following:
If you extend the analysis globally using conservative assumptions regarding energy mix, bitcoin mining in the aggregate employs an estimated 58.4 percent sustainable energy. This is markedly more sustainable than the default US energy mix at 21 percent sustainable.
Elon Musk Made Things Rough
It doesn’t help, however, when industry heads like Elon Musk are on the opposing side. Just two years ago, Musk was all set to allow crypto investors to purchase Tesla vehicles with digital assets like BTC.
Sadly, this ended very quickly given Musk was worried about the transparency of the mining sector. He said he’d be willing to reconsider the situation if miners disclosed all data regarding their resources.
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