The White House has not responded to an ethics counterproposal from Senators Thom Tillis and Mark Kelly on the Clarity Act, leaving a core dispute unresolved as lawmakers work toward a Senate vote before the August recess.
Tillis and Gallego submitted the counterproposal on July 31, according to a post on X by Eleanor Terrett, the Blockchain Association's vice president of government relations. The White House silence extends at least four days into the legislative window, Terrett reported on August 4.
The Clarity Act, a bipartisan digital asset regulation bill sponsored by Tillis and others, aims to clarify which federal regulator oversees which tokens. The ethics dispute centers on conflict-of-interest provisions for regulators making those determinations. Tillis and Gallego's counterproposal was built to address White House concerns that the bill's initial ethics framework was too narrow, according to prior reporting on the bill's negotiation.
The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Clarity Act in late July without those ethics provisions resolved, leaving the amendment track open for floor debate. A vote before the August recess, typically the first week of August for most Senate schedules, would require agreement on the ethics language within days of the White House response.
Terrett, who tracks the bill closely for the Blockchain Association, did not specify what the counterproposal contained beyond its ethics focus. No public version of the Tillis-Gallego proposal has been posted to official legislative databases as of August 4.
The White House Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Council have both weighed in on earlier Clarity Act drafts, raising questions about agency jurisdiction and conflict-of-interest safeguards. Neither office issued a statement on the counterproposal in response to inquiries.
White House silence on a four-day-old counterproposal with a Senate vote window measured in days is atypical for legislative review at this stage. A written response would normally trigger either floor negotiations or a statement from the sponsor's office confirming next steps.
