The Crypto-Asset Environmental Transparency Act will be reintroduced in Congress, stated United States Senator Edward Markey and Representative Jared Huffman on March 3. The action was taken ahead of a Senate hearing on the effects of cryptocurrency mining on the environment, which Markey will preside over on March 7.
The bill was first submitted by Markey and Huffman in December of the previous Session. In the Senate, Senator Jeff Merkley served as a co-sponsor.
An interagency inquiry of the effects of crypto mining in the United States would be led by the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and crypto mining businesses would be required to disclose emissions for operations using more than 5 megawatts of power. It would cost $5 million to conduct and publish that inquiry.
The Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will convene soon, and Markey will preside over it. According to Markey, the urgent need to take action against the escalating environmental effects of cryptomining would be the main topic of that conference.
In a letter sent in February, Democratic lawmakers Markey and Huffman urged the EPA’s Michael Regan and the Energy Department’s Jennifer Granholm to “work together to address the paucity of information about cryptomining’s energy use and environmental implications.” Also, they signed a letter to the CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas requesting data on Texas’s energy use and environmental effects of cryptocurrency mining. The primary author of both letters was Senator Elizabeth Warren.
