{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/emmer-s-flagship-cbdc-anti-surveillance-state-act-passes-house-of-representatives", "Emmer\u2019s Flagship CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act Passes House of Representatives", "2024-05-23", "2024", "2024-05", "Republican", "House", "MN", "Tom Emmer", "E000294", "emmer.house.gov", "emmer", "https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. - Today, the House of Representatives considered and passed Congressman and Majority Whip Tom Emmer\u2019s (MN-06) flagship legislation, the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.\n\nIn a vote of 216 - 192, the House of Representatives passed Emmer\u2019s bill that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a surveillance-style central bank digital currency (CBDC) that could give the federal government the ability to monitor and control individual Americans\u2019 spending habits.\n\n\u201cFor more than two years, we have worked to educate, grow support, and pass this important legislation, which prevents unelected bureaucrats from issuing a financial surveillance tool to fundamentally undermine our American values. My legislation ensures that the United States' digital currency policy remains in the hands of the American people so that any development of digital money reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness. This is what the future global digital economy needs. We are proud to have led this effort and thank my colleagues for their support,\u201d Congressman Emmer said.\n\nClick here to see what key stakeholders are saying in support of the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.\n\nBefore today\u2019s vote, Whip Emmer delivered the following remarks on the House Floor in support of the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act:\n\n\u201cThese last two weeks have been historic for financial innovation in Congress. Adoption of the SAB-121, the resolution by both chambers and bipartisan passage of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act just yesterday shows that digital asset policy is no longer a backburner issue in Congress. It is now front and center, and we are just getting started.\n\nThe policies we\u2019ve recently debated and adopted are in response to an Administration that has failed to provide the clarity and guidance the budding digital asset industry in the United States has been begging for. Because of their failures, Congress has voted to reverse incoherent regulation and establish new standards that will allow our economy to move deeper into the 21st-century economy.\n\nToday, we continue these efforts to once again do what this Administration has failed to do, and I am proud to have my legislation, the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, on the Floor for a vote.\n\nThis bill was the first anti-central bank digital currency legislative effort introduced in the United States, and, for the past two Congresses, I\u2019ve worked with my colleagues to update, improve, and grow support for it. This bill is simple: It halts the efforts of this Administrative State under President Biden from issuing a financial surveillance tool that \u2013 if not done correctly - will fundamentally alter the lives of every American.\n\nUnlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, a CBDC is a digital form of sovereign currency that is designed, issued, and monitored by the federal government. It is government-controlled programmable money that, if not designed to emulate cash, could give the federal government the ability to surveil and restrict Americans' transactions and monitor every aspect of their daily lives.\n\nAnd this is not hyperbole. We have already seen examples of governments developing these types of tools and use them to weaponize their financial systems against their citizens.\n\nIn China, the Communist Party employs a CBDC that can be used to monitor citizens\u2019 spending habits.\n\nCloser to home in the Western Hemisphere, the Canadian government demonstrated the power of federal financial surveillance and control when it froze the bank accounts of hundreds of truckers protesting the COVID vaccine mandate in 2022.\n\nIt is na\u00efve to believe that your government won\u2019t weaponize the tools it has to control you. So, it shouldn\u2019t come as any surprise that the appetite for financial surveillance can be an attractive proposition right here at home.\n\nIn 2023 the White House issued an executive order placing an \u2018urgency\u2019 on CBDC research and development, and the agency reports to that executive order have made it clear that the Biden administration is not only itching to create a CBDC, but they are interested in developing and deploying one, potentially undermining the privacy rights of every one of our citizens.\n\nCongress can\u2019t allow this to happen.\n\nMy bill ensures the United States digital currency policy remains in the hands of the American people \u2013 not the Administrative State \u2013 so that any development of a digital money will reflect our American values: privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness.\n\nThis legislation affirms that if the federal government seeks to create a digital version of the U.S. dollar, they can only do so with the explicit authorization from Congress. They can do that. But they have got to get authorization from Congress and they\u2019ve got to make it open, permissionless, and private.\n\nWhatever is ultimately developed must emulate the core tenets of cash. Simply put: any digital currency issued by the government, again must be open, permissionless, and private.\n\nIt cannot be used in the way the Chinese have deployed their digital yuan to build social credit scores on their citizens based on their purchases and their behavior. These types of tools cannot exist in a free society like ours, and we should only accept a digital currency that\u2019s consistent with our values.\n\nAmerican values.\n\nThis is what the future global digital economy needs. If not open, permissionless, and private \u2013 like cash \u2013 a CBDC is nothing more than a CCP-style surveillance tool that will ultimately be used to oppress our American way of life.\n\nIf China embraces it, you know it\u2019s something worth standing against.\n\nWe can and will continue to launch our economy deeper into the digital age without jeopardizing who we are as Americans, and this bill is designed to ensure that that happens.\n\nI want to thank the 165 Members of Congress who have joined as a cosponsor of my legislation, in addition to Chairman McHenry, Chairman Hill, Chairman Davidson, and the many others on both sides of the political aisle who have worked tirelessly with me and my team to make sure we keep the United States the beacon of innovation and global economic strength without undermining what makes our nation so special.\n\nI urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation and I yield back the balance of my time.\u201d\n\nBackground: Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, a CBDC is a digital form of sovereign currency that is designed and issued by a central government and transacts on a digital ledger that is controlled by that government. In short, a CBDC is government-controlled, programmable money, that if not designed to emulate the privacy protections of cash, could give the federal government the ability to surveil Americans\u2019 transactions and suppress politically unpopular activity.\n\nIn 2022, the Biden Administration issued Executive Order 14067, which placed urgency on the research and development of a central bank digital currency. The Federal Reserve\u2019s 2022 CBDC report, as well as other agency reports pursuant to the Executive Order, outlined the Biden Administration\u2019s interest in researching and developing a surveillance-style CBDC.\n\nForeign governments around the world have already shown a willingness to weaponize their financial system against their citizens. In China, the Communist Party employs a CBDC that has been used to monitor and control citizens\u2019 spending habits. In Canada, the Trudeau Administration froze the bank accounts of hundreds of their citizens who were engaged in the trucker protests of 2022.\n\nThe CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act protects Americans from the growing Administrative State by banning the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency. Specifically, this bill bars the Federal Reserve from directly issuing a CBDC to individuals, preventing the Fed from becoming a retail bank that gathers personal financial information on American citizens. It prohibits the Fed from indirectly issuing a CBDC to individuals through intermediaries, preventing the issuance of a CBDC through our two-tier financial system. It ensures that the Fed cannot use any CBDC to implement monetary policy, preventing it from using a CBDC to manipulate the American economy. It requires that Congress pass legislation authorizing any government-created digital dollar. Finally, the legislation safeguards innovation and any future development of digital cash.\n\nSince the 117th Congress, Whip Emmer has been the leading voice against any Federal Reserve-issued central bank digital currency.\n\nFull text of the bill is available, here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:01:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/emmer-s-flagship-cbdc-anti-surveillance-state-act-passes-house-of-representatives"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.957082025706768, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}