US wants to require miners to report their carbon emissions

The US is considering a bill requiring crypto miners to report CO2 emissions, writes yahoo!finance.

U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Jared Huffman have introduced a draft crypto-asset environmental transparency bill that would require crypto mining operations that consume more than 5 megawatts of energy, which is the majority of bitcoin mining projects, to report carbon emissions.

Senator Jeff Merkley co-sponsored the proposed legislation.

The lawmakers said bitcoin miners use up to 1.4% of the electricity in the US, citing an August report from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that said that was equivalent to the power needed to light every home in the country.

The bill also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct an interagency study of the impact of cryptocurrency mining on the environment.

Cryptocurrency miners responded to criticism of fossil fuel use in an October report released by the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) lobbying group, which found that miners had about 59.4% sustainable energy balance in the third quarter of this year, up from 58.4%. in the first quarter.

In May, BMC said in a letter signed by MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor that data centers with miners are “no different” from those hosted or operated by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft.