Atkins, Bessent, and Sacks Demand Senate Pass CLARITY Act Before Midterm Clock Runs Out
Four senior administration-aligned officials issued coordinated public statements on April 9, 2026, demanding that the Senate Banking Committee schedule a markup of the CLARITY Act before the window closes. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Michael Selig, and former White House crypto czar David Sacks all posted within hours of each other, building a case that congressional delay now carries a concrete political cost.
The Argument Laid Out in Sequence
Bessent moved first, calling on the Banking Committee to advance the bill and send it to President Trump’s desk. His framing was explicitly competitive: without durable federal rules, he argued, developers and capital are leaving for Abu Dhabi and Singapore. “Nations that provide clarity attract innovation,” Bessent wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, adding that passing the legislation “ensures that the next generation of finance is built on American rails, backed by American institutions, and denominated in American dollars.” Sacks followed, endorsing that reasoning and tying the CLARITY Act to the GENIUS Act stablecoin framework Trump signed last year. “Secretary Bessent is right — the time to act is now,” Sacks wrote. Selig then backed Bessent’s call publicly, and Atkins closed the sequence by stating that “Project Crypto” had the SEC and CFTC ready to implement the law the moment Congress delivers it.
The coordinated timing matters because the Senate’s schedule is compressing. Senator Cynthia Lummis confirmed the Banking Committee will attempt a markup in the second half of April, after senators return from Easter recess on April 13. The House passed the CLARITY Act 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate Agriculture Committee cleared its portion in January 2026. The Banking Committee, however, has postponed its markup twice, first in January over a dispute on stablecoin yield rules, then again in March.
Bitcoin BTC$62,624.00▲2.59%
Ethereum ETH$1,656.62▲1.40%
Tether USDT$0.9991▼0.02%
BNB BNB$596.52▲1.74%
USDC USDC$1.0000▲0.02%
XRP XRP$1.13▼0.18%
Solana SOL$65.37▲1.55%
TRON TRX$0.3226▲0.26%
Figure Heloc FIGR_HELOC$1.03▲0.02%
Dogecoin DOGE$0.0850▲0.96%The Midterm Deadline Waiting Behind the Markup
The more consequential pressure point is what comes after another delay. Senator Bernie Moreno warned the bill could slip past May, and analysts at TD Cowen and TD Securities have warned that any legislation failing to clear conference and final votes before the summer recess faces a real risk of dying on the calendar as midterm politics consume the Senate floor. That risk is not speculative; it follows the standard congressional pattern of legislative paralysis in election years. Bessent’s reference to crypto “nihilists” in his remarks, directed at industry participants who resist any regulatory structure, suggests the administration reads part of the obstacle as internal to the sector rather than purely procedural.
What is confirmed: the administration has aligned its regulators behind a single public push, the Senate timetable is tight, and two prior markups have already failed to happen. What remains unconfirmed is whether the stablecoin yield dispute that derailed January’s markup has been resolved. Until that specific obstacle is documented as cleared, the April window is a target, not a certainty. The prosecution rests on the evidence; the verdict belongs to the Banking Committee.
