Republican lawmakers sent a request to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct a “comprehensive analysis of the possible environmental impact of mining digital assets.”
More than a dozen congressmen from the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee signed a petition addressed to agency head Michael Regan.
The letter was written by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis and California Lower House member Patrick McHenry.
The petition notes that “a significant portion of the energy consumption of digital asset miners is based on renewable energy sources.” Many cryptocurrency mining operations “use other sources of energy, such as natural gas, that may otherwise go unclaimed.”
According to the authors of the letter, the federal authorities do not have the right to choose the types of technologies that should be given preference. The US government should not do anything that could undermine US leadership in the cryptocurrency mining sector.
The petition is opposed to the previously published petition of Democratic congressmen who oppose mining on PoW. Mining opponents are led by California State Representative Jared Huffman of the Committee on Natural Resources. The Democrats in their petition warned the head of the EPA about climate risks and called for a more thorough analysis of the harm of PoW mining.
Democrats argue that the government should mark Proof of Stake (PoS) mining technology as potentially “consuming 99.99% less power” to verify transactions.
At the beginning of the month, US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in the country due to a lack of power generating capacity, which could negatively affect the activities of local miners.
Source: Bits
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