US House Republicans push for stablecoin regulation through new bill

According to The Block, French Hill, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee and a Republican from Arkansas, has released a draft legislation to regulate stablecoins, and U.S. lawmakers are pushing for rule making for these assets. Hill and Wisconsin Republican Congressman Bryan Steill released a discussion draft on stablecoins on Thursday, based on years of work by the House Financial Services Committee. Steil leads the committee's group focused on digital assets. Hill and Steil are seeking feedback on the draft, which will be discussed at next week's hearing of the House Financial Services Committee. For many years, lawmakers have been working hard to pass a stablecoin bill, with the main focus on the House of Representatives. One controversial point of the bill is the provision allowing state regulators to approve stablecoin issuances without the involvement of the Federal Reserve. The discussion draft is slightly different from the previous stablecoin bill. For example, it empowers the Office of the Superintendent of Currency (OCC) to "approve and supervise federally qualified non bank payment stablecoin issuers," rather than providing a federal pathway for "payment stablecoin issuers" through the Federal Reserve. Earlier this week, Republican Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee proposed a stablecoin regulatory bill called the "Guiding and Establishing a National Innovation Act for Stablecoins in the United States". The discussion draft is not a supporting bill for the Hagerty Act, but Hill and Steil stated that both bills reflect the Republicans' efforts on key issues.