Need to Clarify
Smith attended a news conference at the Capitol last week with four moderate Democratic and Republican members of the House who are strongly supportive of the financial technology industry. They, too, weren’t leaping to endorse the Libra project.
Representative Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the financial services panel, said at the event that he hopes the focus on Facebook’s proposal will prompt lawmakers to consider legislation that clarifies the regulatory landscape. Some of the laws governing digital currency, he noted, go back to the 1930s.
“We have to have the conversation,’’ he said. “I don’t want to lose the jobs and innovation elsewhere.’’
Gottheimer plans to strike a similar theme at the Facebook hearing this week, but it’s not clear how many other members of the House panel will be interested in the finer details of Libra or digital payments.
Some lawmakers predicted that the hearing may quickly devolve into a series of anti-Facebook rants, on issues like fake news in the 2016 campaign, data protection, the company’s market dominance and the FTC settlement. Those topics are often easier to understand for some members of Congress who are decidedly not techies.
In what may be a harbinger, Financial Services Committee member David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, mistakenly referred to the digital token Libra as Libor, an interbank lending rate, while questioning the Powell last week. The Fed chief didn’t bother to correct him.
--With assistance from Lydia Beyoud, Austin Weinstein and Julie Verhage.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.