Congress blocks the Fed from issuing digital dollars—forever.
S. 464 — No CBDC Act · Filed by Mike Lee (R-UT) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 6, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and any other federal agency from issuing, minting, or offering central bank digital currency (CBDC) directly to individuals or through intermediaries, and bars the Federal Reserve from holding such currencies as assets. It effectively blocks the federal government from creating a digital version of the dollar that citizens could hold or use.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a blanket prohibition on federal issuance of CBDC. It does not create a new program, fund an initiative, or establish a carve-out—it removes authority. This is straightforward regulatory restriction, not a subsidy, carve-out, or hidden rider.
What the text implies
- Blocks not only direct CBDC issuance but also indirect distribution through custodial intermediaries and supervised banks, foreclosing hybrid models that might have balanced privacy and financial inclusion.
- Prevents Federal Reserve from holding government-issued CBDC as an asset, which may constrain future monetary policy tools or cross-border settlement mechanisms if other nations adopt CBDCs.
- Does not address private stablecoins or cryptocurrency; the prohibition is narrow to government-issued digital currency, leaving the private digital-asset market unaffected.
- May create a competitive disadvantage if other major economies (EU, China, UK) deploy CBDCs while the U.S. remains unable to, affecting international payment systems and dollar dominance.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens lose access to a potential future payment technology (CBDC) that could offer benefits like reduced transaction costs, financial inclusion, or programmable money; however, they also avoid potential surveillance risks, privacy erosion, or government control over spending that critics associate with CBDCs. The trade-off between innovation/efficiency and privacy/autonomy is genuine and unresolved.
Who stands to gain
- traditional banking sector (reduced competition from government-issued digital payment rails)
- private cryptocurrency and stablecoin issuers (no government alternative to compete with)
Named in the bill
Federal Reserve, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Secretary of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Act, Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act, Section 2A of the Federal Reserve Act
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Republicans.
- Feb 6, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Feb 6, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $4,860,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 4 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Lee, the sponsor, reported $241,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Rai Services Company — $3,850,000 on 2 filings
- Alkermes, Inc. — $870,000 on 1 filing
- Rai Services Company — $140,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,133 characters) on Aug 19, 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.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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