Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group, has publicly chastised Alabama lawmaker Richard Shelby for blocking an amendment clarifying the role of cryptocurrency in the upcoming infrastructure bill in the US Senate.
Fight for the Future has used cryptocurrency donations to put up a billboard in Birmingham, Alabama, urging lawmakers not to support legislation that would harm crypto and blockchain companies.
Since 1987, Shelby has been one of two senators representing Alabama, and he objected to the introduction of a crypto amendment to the Senate’s infrastructure bill, HR 3684.
“Senator Shelby‘s constituents deserve to know that he derailed the [crypto] amendment solely to stoke his ego and demand additional funding for war,” Fight for the Future director Evan Greer told Cointelegraph.
“We want to demonstrate to elected officials that ignorance about issues such as decentralized technology and cryptocurrency is simply not acceptable.”
As written, the infrastructure bill proposes tightening regulations on organizations that deal in cryptocurrencies and expanding reporting requirements for brokers, requiring the Internal Revenue Service to disclose digital asset transactions worth more than $10,000.
Several senators collaborated on a proposal to remove software developers, transaction validators, and node operators from the definition of brokers, implying that tax reporting requirements “apply only to intermediaries.”
Senate lawmakers, on the other hand, refused to allow Shelby to add his own amendment to the package, which would have added $50 billion in defense money to the roughly $1 trillion in funding for roads, bridges, and key infrastructure projects.
Later, the Alabama senator stated he backed the crypto amendment but placed a higher premium on defence funding.
The infrastructure bill now moves to the House of Representatives, where lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution requiring the proposal to be voted on by Sept. 27.
Several House members have already expressed support for amending the bill’s crypto provisions, but Fight for the Future reports that Representative Brad Sherman is one of the few voices opposing such an amendment — the lawmaker has previously called for a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in the United States.
Greer added:
“There will be a number of opportunities in the coming months for the House of Representatives to fix the problematic crypto provision that was included in the infrastructure bill. We want members of Congress to know that we’ll be watching them and that we won’t let them hide from their positions on this.”
