Congress buries deregulation and crypto carve-outs in privacy bill
H.R. 2155 — Saving Privacy Act · Filed by Andrew Ogles (R-TN) · Introduced Mar 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill restricts government access to financial records, eliminates the SEC's consolidated audit trail for stock trading, prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, imposes new congressional approval requirements for major federal regulations, increases penalties for unauthorized financial record disclosure, raises the threshold for third-party payment reporting from $600 to $20,000, and protects individuals' use of cryptocurrency for personal purchases.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a multi-front privacy expansion (bank records, payment reporting, CBDC prohibition, crypto use) paired with a sweeping regulatory approval requirement (REINS Act) that shifts power from agencies to Congress. The title 'Saving Privacy Act' undersells the regulatory control dimension, which is equally consequential.
- Title V (REINS Act) imposes congressional approval for all major federal rules—substantively unrelated to financial privacy, appears to be a standalone deregulation vehicle.
- Title VIII (Keep Your Coins Act) prohibits federal agencies from restricting convertible virtual currency use—unrelated to bank privacy or audit trail, appears to be a crypto-advocacy rider.
What the text implies
- Raising the third-party payment reporting threshold from $600 to $20,000 and eliminating the consolidated audit trail will significantly reduce visibility into financial flows, potentially impairing anti-money-laundering, tax enforcement, and fraud detection.
- The REINS Act (Title V) creates a 70-session-day approval window for all major rules; if Congress does not affirmatively vote to approve, the rule dies. This inverts the default and may paralyze agency action on consumer protection, environmental, and labor rules even when Congress has delegated authority.
- The prohibition on CBDC issuance is permanent and preemptive, blocking any future Federal Reserve digital currency initiative without requiring Congress to revisit the decision.
- The consolidated audit trail termination (Title III) eliminates real-time market surveillance for stock trading, potentially reducing SEC's ability to detect market manipulation and insider trading.
- Criminal and civil penalties for unauthorized financial record disclosure (Title VI) are strengthened, but the higher payment reporting threshold and audit trail elimination may reduce the number of records subject to protection.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill strengthens privacy protections for bank customers and cryptocurrency users, and increases congressional oversight of regulations—genuine public benefits. However, it simultaneously weakens financial crime detection (by raising payment reporting thresholds and eliminating the consolidated audit trail), undermines SEC market surveillance, and creates a regulatory approval bottleneck that may paralyze agency action on consumer protection, environmental, and labor rules. The net effect dep
Who stands to gain
- cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet providers
- financial institutions (reduced compliance burden for payment reporting)
- regulated industries subject to major rules (deregulation via REINS Act approval bottleneck)
Named in the bill
Federal Reserve, SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), NCUA (National Credit Union Administration), Consolidated Audit Trail LLC, FINRA CAT LLC
Where it stands
- Mar 14, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 14, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means and House Committee on the Budget · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, Rules…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (39,339 characters) on Jul 27, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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