House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill has argued that recent efforts by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to craft digital-asset rules fall short of the lasting framework only Congress can deliver.
After the Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, Hill credited the agencies with stepping in but insisted their actions cannot replace a statutory solution.
The CLARITY Act, which Hill helped advance as a primary sponsor, aimed to establish clear market-structure rules for most cryptocurrency activity in the United States.
It would have drawn firmer lines between the SEC’s and CFTC’s jurisdictions over digital assets and digital commodities.
The House had previously passed related legislation with bipartisan support, but the Senate failed to advance the measure in a 49-50 procedural vote in mid-September 2026.
It required 60 votes to move forward, leaving the bill stalled and prompting immediate regulatory responses.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig both indicated their agencies would proceed under existing statutory authority.
Within days, the SEC introduced an innovation exemption allowing certain tokenized stock trading under temporary relief, and it proposed updates to custody rules for investment advisers and funds handling crypto assets.
The CFTC submitted market rulemaking proposals for White House review and outlined steps toward bringing crypto trading platforms under federal oversight.
These steps sought to address questions about permissible activities, custody, and platform regulation that the legislation was designed to settle.Hill acknowledged the progress.
He noted that Atkins and Selig have used their regulatory powers and exemptive relief to give practical definition to digital assets and digital commodities, helping create a functional system for this form of finance in the United States.
Yet he was direct about the limits: in his judgment, these regulatory policies fall short of what is required, which is a legislative solution.
He pointed to his earlier work on the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act in the prior Congress as further evidence of the need for statute.
According to Hill, the core distinction is durability.
Exemptions, guidance, and even formal agency rules can be challenged in court, revised or withdrawn by a future administration, or limited by questions of statutory authority.
A law passed by Congress, by contrast, would set durable jurisdictional boundaries and obligations that the agencies would then implement.
Without that permanent change, the framework remains vulnerable to shifts in regulatory priorities.
Hill has argued that only such legislation can secure lasting certainty and keep the United States leading in digital assets and blockchain technology.
His stance pushes back against a view that has gained traction in parts of the industry since the Senate vote: that market participants can achieve much of what they need by working with regulators rather than waiting on Congress.
Hill has continued to hope the CLARITY Act can be revived during the post-election lame-duck session, when a narrow window of Senate session days remains before the next Congress. It’s uncertain whether they can resolve the disagreements that blocked the bill in that period, but the agencies are already moving ahead with their own initiatives in the meantime.
