Senator Kevin Cramer said the Senate has moved close to a deal on the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill, with a fresh set of amendments on ethics and enforcement before Democrats for review.
The North Dakota Republican, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told Fox Business on Tuesday that the bill grows “clearer” as “each issue gets dealt with,” and that “we’re almost there.” He said the largest holdup is Democrats reading the new amendments, “some of them relevant to the ethics piece.”
The central compromise Cramer described concerns who enforces the law. He said there appears to be “some agreement that the Department of Justice would be the prevailing enforcer,” a structure he backed as the source of uniform rules. Democrats, he said, had preferred a role for state attorneys general, an approach he argued would create “too disparate a situation” for the clarity the industry seeks.
Ethics fight over President Trump
That enforcement question sits at the heart of a months-long ethics fight over President Trump’s crypto ventures.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, had floated language that would let state attorneys general sue exchanges that list tokens issued by public officials, a provision aimed at holdings tied to the president and his family.
Democrats on the committee have pressed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to bar the president, vice president, and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed on a party-line vote during the committee markup.
Trump has met with senators over the ethics dispute as the White House and negotiators work toward terms. The shift Cramer outlined would route that enforcement to federal prosecutors rather than to fifty separate state offices, a change that narrows the paths available to challenge a listed token but centralizes the decision to act in the Justice Department.
Cramer said the Senate has “a couple more weeks” before the August recess, and echoed Lummis in the push for passage before the break.
“We have to get this done,” he said about the Clarity Act.
Lummis, in an interview last week, said the bill was “ready” and that it was “very important” to move it across the finish line before the recess, so that markets could see “the stability that will be provided to them if they remain on shore in the United States.”
Cramer flagged one more sticking point beyond enforcement: the definition of securities intermediaries. “The industry doesn’t like that,” he said, and noted a preference for a definition built around decentralization. He cast the remaining gaps as matters of “small details.”
Lots of clarity about the Clarity Act
The Clarity Act would split oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, set disclosure rules for certain tokens, and extend anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules to crypto exchanges. The House passed its version a year ago, and the measure has waited in the Senate since.
The Senate Banking Committee advanced its version of the Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote this spring, with two Democrats crossing over.
The timeline is tight. Majority Leader John Thune has aimed to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends in early August, and House members have urged the Senate to act within the window.
The CFTC chair called the bill “so close”, while Galaxy Research cut its passage odds to 50-50 as the clock ran down.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen: Clarity Act on ‘1-yard line’
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added his voice to the push, telling Bloomberg that lawmakers stood at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act and urging Congress to pass the bill before the recess.
The bill competes for floor time with a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown at the end of September and a reconciliation package, priorities Cramer ranked ahead of other items in the same interview. President Trump has pressed the chamber to pass the crypto measure, a message he has paired with warnings about competition from China.
For all the optimism, Cramer stopped short of a firm date. “I don’t know that we get to it this week,” he said, a caveat that leaves the bill’s fate to the narrow stretch of Senate days before lawmakers leave Washington.