Latest news with #MaxineWaters
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Dems Say They're Blocked From Info on Verge of Crypto Market Structure Bill Hearings
On the eve of a U.S. House of Representatives hearing to scrutinize a bill to establish rules for the crypto markets, Democrats said they've been stymied from seeking technical information about its effects from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to staffers. Regulatory agencies such as the SEC routinely give technical analysis to lawmakers, answering questions about the potential effects of legislative efforts such as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that would establish regulatory guardrails for digital assets. Democratic staff on the House Financial Services Committee submitted questions to the SEC about the bill and in a briefing were denied basic answers that were previously given to Republicans, according to the Democratic aides who asked not to be named. The agency also didn't offer its subject-matter experts for the discussion, they said. On Tuesday, the panel's ranking Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters of California, prepared a letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins to demand "comprehensive technical and impact analysis" of the crypto market structure bill. She included several pages of questions in a draft reviewed by CoinDesk, contending that "fulsome answers to the questions raised above are necessary for the American people, through their representatives in Congress, to determine whether this legislative proposal addresses the unique risks related to crypto, and would foster the needed environment for responsible innovation to take root." The SEC "provides technical assistance to any Member of Congress who seeks it, including on these crypto-related bills," a spokesperson told CoinDesk when asked about the complaints. One of the staffers said that the SEC Crypto Task Force's Landon Zinda, who moved to the agency from crypto advocacy group Coin Center in February, was meant to brief them but was unable to answer basic questions. The House committee is set to hold the Clarity Act hearing on Wednesday after having recently introduced the long-negotiated legislation, a successor of the last sessions' Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21). The House Agriculture Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the regulation of digital assets, is running its own hearing at the same time. This bill represents the central policy goal of the crypto industry, which contends that it needs clear U.S. regulations to encourage investors who've waited on the sidelines and to keep crypto innovators from moving overseas. The Democratic staffers say that members have concerns about the traditional securities firms finding loopholes in this major legislation that will allow them to skirt existing securities regulations. But congressional Democrats haven't acted as a block when it comes to this and a related stablecoin bill also making its way through the legislative process. While some leaders, including Waters, have opposed advancing crypto legislation, other Democrats have joined with Republicans to move bills forward in both the House and Senate. Updates with a response from the SEC and further information from sources.
Fox News
4 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Maxine Waters campaign to pay $68K for violating campaign finance laws
Progressive California Rep. Maxine Waters' campaign has agreed to pay a $68,000 fine after an investigation found it violated multiple election rules. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said the longtime House lawmaker's 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, ran afoul of several campaign finance laws in a tranche of documents released Friday. The FEC accused Citizens for Waters of "failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020," "knowingly accepting excessive contributions" and "making prohibited cash disbursements," according to one document that appears to be a legally binding agreement that allows both parties to avoid going to court. Waters' committee agreed to pay the civil fine as well as "send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees within one year of the effective date of this Agreement." "Respondent shall submit evidence of the required registration and attendance at such event to the Commission," the document said. Citizens for Waters had accepted excessive campaign contributions from seven people totaling $19,000 in 2019 and 2020, the investigation found, despite the maximum legal individual contribution being capped at $2,800. The committee offloaded those excessive donations, albeit in an "untimely" fashion, the document said. Waters' campaign committee also "made four prohibited cash disbursements that were each in excess of $100, totaling $7,000," the FEC said. The campaign committee "contends that it retained legal counsel to provide advice and guidance to the treasurer and implemented procedures to ensure the disbursements comply with the requirements of the Act." Leilani Beaver, who was listed as Citizens for Waters' attorney, sent the FEC a letter last year that maintained the campaign finance violations were "errors" that "were not willful or purposeful." Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has served in Congress since 1991. The new movements in the probe were first reported by OpenSecrets. It is not the first time, however, that Waters has generated public scrutiny. In 2023, a Fox News Digital investigation found that Waters' campaign paid her daughter $192,300 to pay for a "slate mailer" operation between Jan. 2021 and Dec. 2022. It was reportedly just one sum out of thousands that Waters had paid her daughter for campaign work. A complaint that Waters' campaign had accepted illegal campaign contributions in 2018 was overwhelmingly dismissed by the FEC in a 5-1 vote. Fox News Digital reached out to Beavers, Waters' congressional office and Citizens for Waters for comment.
Coin Geek
27-05-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
US Democrat presents anti-corruption bill ahead of Trump's gala
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... United States Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced on May 22 legislation to ban the president and other lawmakers from engaging in certain digital asset activities, addressing growing concerns amongst Democrats about President Donald Trump's involvement in digital assets, and in particular his memecoin. Rep. Waters, along with 14 other Democratic co-sponsors, introduced the 'Stop Trading, Retention, and Unfair Market Payoffs in Crypto Act of 2025' (the Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act of 2025) to end 'crypto corruption.' Specifically, the bill calls for a ban on the president, vice president, members of Congress or their families 'owning a proportion of a digital asset that would allow them to unilaterally make changes to the digital asset,' and looks to prevent officials from owning, issuing, promoting, or receiving compensation for selling digital assets or trading them while in office. The bill was announced—uncoincidentally—just hours before President Trump held a gala for the top holders of his $TRUMP memecoin on May 22. 'Trump's crypto con is not just a scam to target investors,' Rep. Waters said. 'It's also a dangerous backdoor for selling influence over American policies to the highest foreign bidder. For all we know, Russia, China, or even North Korea could be buying Trump's crypto to secure favors from the White House.' Trump's crypto ties and influence Trump has made boosting the U.S. digital asset space one of his top priorities since taking office for the second time in January. As well as frequent proclamations in support of the industry—such as declaring that he wanted to 'make America the crypto capital of the world'—Trump has moved quickly to reshape the regulatory landscape in the U.S. into a more crypto-favorable shape, including reversing so-called crypto debanking, installing crypto-advocates in key regulatory roles, and signing an executive order to make a strategic bitcoin reserve. One of the starkest examples of this Trump 2.0-era embracing of digital assets is seen in the changing face of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under its former chairman, Gary Gensler, the agency was the bane of the more regulation-shy in the digital asset industry, pursuing a strategy of aggressive enforcement actions against those that failed to comply with securities laws—whether they believed they were exempt or not. Gensler retired from the role in January, just as Trump was being sworn into office, and a crypto-friendly interim Chair was installed in the form of Mark Uyeda. Under Uyeda, and with the support of SEC Commissioner Hester 'crypto mom' Peirce, the agency has been dropping lawsuits and investigations faster than it filed them under Gensler's reign. By March of this year, after only threey months of Trump's Presidency and Uyeda's SEC chairmanship, the regulator had already dropped investigations into Yuga Labs, Web3 gaming platform Immutable, Uniswap, and Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD); settled its long-running case against Ripple Labs; dropped its lawsuits against Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN); reached agreements in principle to dismiss separate lawsuits against Kraken and Consensys; and jointly moved to halt its ongoing legal battle with Justin Sun and the Tron Foundation. However, it is not Trump's influence on the approach of U.S. regulators that has caused the biggest backlash from Democratic lawmakers. Instead, it is the President's dabbling in the digital asset space that has proven too much to bear. Specifically, three days before his January 20 inauguration, the Trump team launched $TRUMP, a meme token on the Solana blockchain, followed by the Trump-backed digital asset firm World Liberty Financial (WLF) launching its own stablecoin in March. Orchestrating a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment from the office of the president while at the same time profiting from crypto projects launched into this newly favorable space appears to be an apparent conflict of interest—one that has not gone unnoticed by critics and that has begun to hamper legislative efforts. Democrat critique On May 6, Rep. Waters walked out of a joint meeting between the House Financial Services and Agriculture committees, focused on cryptocurrency policy, citing concerns over the Trump family's digital asset businesses. Waters said she objected to the proceeding 'because of the corruption of the president of the United States and his ownership of crypto and his oversight of all the agencies.' This sentiment was echoed by Democratic colleagues, including Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who said, 'It's legitimate to call out the self-dealing from the Trump administration related to hawking memecoins from the White House.' On May 15, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, added his voice to the growing choir of dissent and made it official by announcing a resolution condemning Trump's pattern of corrupt self-enrichment. 'Trump's crypto corruption is so massive and brazen, there is little doubt that he will keep selling out the American people until Republicans grow a spine,' said Blumenthal. 'Next week, while Trump dines with whoever has funneled the most money into his pocket, I'll be calling for passage of this resolution as a test to see if Republicans are more than mere lackeys to President Trump's self-enrichment schemes.' Now, the House Democrats have also introduced regulation to this effect, in the form of the 'Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act of 2025,' which was backed by Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Alexander 'Al' Green (D-TX), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), among others. In support of the bill, Rep. Green said: 'President Trump's second presidency has brought corruption in this country to new heights… Nothing illustrates this more than President Trump's memecoin. This bill is absolutely vital to ensure that future public servants and their families do not repeat President Trump's ignominious example.' Watch: Breaking down solutions to blockchain regulation hurdles title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
E&E News
16-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
House Democrats slam banks over climate commitments
Dozens of House Democrats hammered a group of financial institutions Thursday for shifting their climate commitments since President Donald Trump took office. Forty-one lawmakers cited their concerns in a letter to 12 financial behemoths, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. The Democrats slammed the groups for withdrawing from coalitions committed to emissions reductions, such as the Net Zero Banking Alliance and the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. Advertisement The letter was led by Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Sean Casten (D-Ill.), the ranking and vice ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee. They accused the banks of caving to pressure from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.
Reuters
15-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
U.S. finance CEOs challenged for leaving climate pacts by Democratic lawmakers
NEW YORK/LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers harshly criticized the chief executives of BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab, JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab and other top finance companies for leaving several global coalitions devoted to combating climate change, urging them to uphold their previous commitments and policy targets designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Against a backdrop of worsening extreme weather events and rising financial risks, the members of Congress said the bosses had "actively decided to cede leadership on combating climate change," a letter to the executives seen by Reuters showed. The letter, sent Thursday, also asks for records of their communications with the Trump administration regarding any plans to cut their work on environmental and social causes. "We are disappointed that your organization appears to be disregarding science and what's good for business, and instead yielding to political pressure for short-term political favor," it said. The chief executives of Morgan Stanley (MS.N), opens new tab, Citigroup (C.N), opens new tab, Bank of America (BAC.N), opens new tab, Wells Fargo (WFC.N), opens new tab, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab, Northern Trust (NTRS.O), opens new tab, Franklin Templeton (BEN.N), opens new tab, State Street (STT.N), opens new tab, Invesco (IVZ.N), opens new tab and Pimco, part of insurer Allianz ( opens new tab, also received the letter, which was led by California Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. Pimco, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi and JPMorgan have declined to comment, while the other companies and banks did not immediately return a request for comment. Each institution left either the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative or Climate Action 100+, members of which had either committed to cutting emissions linked to the institution's activities or to engaging with investee companies over climate. When they left the groups, most of the institutions said they still pledged to reduce emissions but made no reference to the political pressure from some Republican politicians, who accused the companies of unfairly seeking to limit financing to the fossil fuel industry. Industry emissions from the burning of coal, gas and oil are the leading cause of man-made global warming and countries have agreed to try and reduce them, although the administration of President Donald Trump has recently pulled the U.S. out of the deal. As well as asking the CEOs to explain their decision to leave the groups, the letter asked them to confirm their intention to achieve their previously stated emissions-reduction goals and explain how they intended to do it. The letter also asked whether they would continue publishing their progress or explain why not; to detail existing targets and policies to cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate; and to commit not to weaken them. For the banks specifically, it asked them whether they still intend to set targets and policies on so-called "facilitated" greenhouse gas emissions, such as those linked to companies issuing bonds a bank underwrites. The letter also asked whether the banks would stick with the same timetable for emission reduction goals. And for all the companies, it asked them to detail communications with the Trump administration regarding cutting environmental, social and governance activities since Jan. 20, including any directives to freeze funds for climate-related federal programmes such as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
