The House of Representatives approved blocking the Federal Reserve from establishing its central bank digital currency in a 216-192 vote on Thursday.
Three Democrats backed the Republican-sponsored bill.
The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act now moves forward to the Senate for approval.
This move is a victory against the Biden administration, which has long planned to encroach on people’s lives through its digital currency.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota), the bill’s sponsor, emphasized the need for this bill to prevent government overreach and protect financial privacy.
If the legislation goes into law, the Federal Reserve will be banned from collecting personal financial data. It also prohibits the Fed from implementing a CBDC through a third-party institution.
The bill will also limit the central bank from using any CBDC to impose monetary guidelines.
He added that the bill ensures that the U.S. digital currency policy “upholds our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free-market competitiveness.”
“If not designed to be open, permissionless, and private — emulating cash — a government-issued CBDC is nothing more than a CCP-style surveillance tool that would be used to undermine the American way of life,” Emmer quipped.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Rep. Emmer remarked, “For more than two years, we have worked to educate, grow support, and pass this important legislation, which prevents unelected bureaucrats from issuing a financial surveillance tool to fundamentally undermine our American values.”
“My legislation ensures that the United States’ digital currency policy remains in the hands of the American people, so that any development of digital money reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty and free market competitiveness. This is what the future global digital economy needs.”
America First Policy Institute questioned the limitations of allowing the Federal Government to create its own CBDC and if the CBDC can be used to circumvent warrants.
“By allowing the government to implement a CBDC, whether a wholesale, intermediated, or direct CBDC, the United States would open a Pandora’s box, wherein the government could have the power to completely suppress or cut financial services from any individual or entity they desired,” the group said.
Conservative think-tank Heritage Action quipped that a CBDC could equate to “government surveilling personal finances.”
“Anti-CBDC legislation is necessary to safeguard Americans’ financial privacy in the face of potential surveillance, control, and political intimidation. Heritage Action and our two million grassroots activists nationwide support congressional action on this issue,” Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker said.
