Federal Energy Agencies’ Reluctance to Act on White House’s Crypto Mining Recommendations Upset US Legislature – Regulation Bitcoin News

Jared Huffman, a US lawmaker who advocates for increased scrutiny of cryptomining entities, has reportedly chastised US energy agencies that he accuses of failing to act on the White House’s call for them to make “reliability assessments of current and projected crypto assets”. mining on electricity system reliability and adequacy.” However, a commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Allison Clements, insists that cryptomining should not be separated from online studies.

Agencies that review recommendations from the White House

Jared Huffman, a member of the US House of Representatives, has reportedly questioned the unwillingness or reluctance of some US federal agencies to respond to the recommendations of a recently released White House report on cryptocurrency mining.

According to Huffman, a California representative and member of the Democratic Party, the silence of the federal agencies may well mean “this problem [environmental damage allegedly caused by crypto mining] potentially getting worse.”

According to a Bloomberg Law report, U.S. energy and environmental officials have not announced plans to pursue possible efficiency standards or to conduct energy use studies called for by the White House report. For example, Costa Samaras, principal assistant director for energy in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, is quoted in the report as acknowledging that agencies have yet to provide an answer.

“Each agency is reviewing the recommendations, and will announce commitments as part of its own process and timeline,” Samaras said.

On the other hand, Samaras’ colleagues at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Commission (NAERC) insisted that they already have safeguards in place should a grid failure occur, so there are no plans to make a reliability rating specifically for cryptocurrency.

Cryptomining should not be separated from online studies

In its report, titled ‘Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-assets in the United States’, the White House said that both FERC and NAERC, along with regional entities, “should conduct reliability assessments of current and projected crypto-asset mining on electricity system reliability and adequacy.”

The White House report also called on agencies responsible for collecting energy information to “consider collecting and analyzing information from cryptoasset miners and power tools in a privacy-preserving manner to enable evidence-based decisions about the energy and climate implications of cryptoassets.”

Unimpressed by the agencies’ reasoning, Huffman, who has campaigned for greater scrutiny of crypto mining facilities, warned that he will be forced to take action if nothing is done. He said:

If I don’t hear from them in the next few weeks, I’m definitely going to get on the phone and find out what’s going on.

Meanwhile, Huffman’s fellow Democrat and FERC commissioner Allison Clements is quoted in the Bloomberg Law report as insisting that cryptomining should not be separated from online studies.

“It’s unclear to me that an individual reliability assessment related to cryptocurrency mining, which happens at locations, should be separated from general reliability planning of any particular node, any service territory, any region, any interconnection,” Clements said.

The FERC commissioner added that while crypto mining is something that’s on the agency’s radar, she didn’t have “anything to report, in terms of anything coming up soon.”

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Terence Zimwara

Terence Zimwara is a Zimbabwean award-winning journalist, writer and author. He has written extensively about the economic problems in some African countries, as well as how digital currencies can provide Africans with an escape route.