Wiley Nickel Slams SEC For Making ‘Crypto Less Safe For Consumers’
On Tuesday, Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) questioned Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on crypto currency regulation and policy during a House Financial Services Committee hearing.
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Transcript
00:00We'll go to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Nichols, recognized for five minutes.
00:05Thanks so much, Secretary Yellen, for being here today. I was very glad to hear you commit
00:11to Congressman Hill that you'll continue to work with Congress to create a regulatory structure
00:16for digital assets and that you hope it will reach a quote-unquote good conclusion. I think
00:21it's especially important that we continue to work on this issue in a bipartisan way.
00:25This Congress, we're on track to be one of the least productive in our nation's history,
00:29but this is a place where we've had good bipartisan agreement, and I hope you will
00:32continue to make it a priority for this administration. I also want to talk about
00:39your role as chair of FSOC and want to echo Congressman Flood's concerns with the concentration
00:46risk in the market for crypto custody due to the SEC's misguided SAV-121, which makes crypto less
00:54safe for consumers. We have the best banks in the world. They ought to be able to take care of
01:00this custodial banking piece, but I appreciate your attention to these important issues. I
01:06certainly want to applaud you and your agency's important leadership on the global stage seeking
01:12to forward American interests, repair alliances, and isolate dictators. First question is about
01:17Russian oil. In April, I joined a bipartisan fact-finding mission to Ukraine to show our
01:23support in their war against Putin's aggression and unprovoked attack on their country. After I
01:29met with President Zelensky, it was clear to me that we need to do as much as we can to prevent
01:34Russia from fueling the war with profits from their oil exports. If we fail, we hand over Ukraine
01:40to Russia, and we know that an emboldened Putin will continue on to Eastern Europe. The U.S.-led
01:46oil price cap has reduced Russian export earnings significantly, but there's a lot more to do.
01:52On the whole, we're seeing countries comply with the price cap restrictions, but China, India,
01:57and Russia have access to limited non-G7 shipping and insurance services which don't have to comply
02:03with the cap. Secretary Yellen, what is the strategy to address the price cap circumvention,
02:08and how do you propose that we hold these countries and entities accountable? Well,
02:14so as you said, at first we had a very big impact on Russian revenues, and then to circumvent
02:24the price cap, they invested very heavily in a shadow fleet of vessels and insurance coverage,
02:33so they would free themselves of dependence on Western services, including shipping.
02:40Now, that's expensive, and they have really diverted a lot of resources from other uses
02:50in order to build that fleet. Then we took the step this past year of sanctioning some of the
03:01SOFCOM float ships that are involved in this trade, and that appeared to be effective in
03:10widening the discount that they received on Russian oil, and we continue to look at
03:17expanding those sanctions. Now, our goals from the outset with respect to the price cap were twofold,
03:27that we want to reduce Russian revenues or alternatively raise their costs of selling oil,
03:37and also we want to keep the market well supplied, and so as we contemplate additional sanctions,
03:44we really also look at what impact do we think that our actions could have on the global oil market
03:53if our sanctions raised global oil prices significantly. That would be a negative
04:01not only to American drivers, but also to countries around the world that are dependent on
04:11foreign oil, and so we want to be careful about doing it, but we continue to look at additional
04:17sanctions. Thanks so much. As the world looks for alternatives to Russian and Iranian oil,
04:23nuclear energy must play a role. Governments around the world are shifting policies toward
04:27nuclear power as clean, a reliable source of 24-7 electricity. I'm very glad the administration has
04:34rallied the world and secured pledges from 22 countries to triple their nuclear energy capacity
04:38by 2050. Unfortunately, Russia and China continue to dominate the global nuclear market. Meanwhile,
04:44U.S. companies are competing against foreign governments without meaningful support from the
04:48federal government. When countries in key strategic areas around the world need civil nuclear energy,
04:54I don't want them to rely on Russia and China. What should Congress be doing to assist the
04:59administration in deploying nuclear energy around the world? I mean, all I can really say here is
05:06the Treasury is supportive of using all available technologies, including nuclear. I mean, our role
05:17is with the multilateral development banks. They, with the exception of the EBRD, don't touch
05:26nuclear, and we have been supportive of having them review their policies in this area.
05:33My time has expired.