House commerce subcommittee approves amendments limiting local restrictions on digital-asset mining

A House Commerce and Consumer Affairs subcommittee on digital assets voted to advance amended bill language that narrows local governments’ ability to set special restrictions on digital-asset mining and removes a provision about private cryptographic keys.

The amendment sponsor, Representative John Ammon, said the revised language removes the private-key provisions and several definitions and narrows the parts of the bill that would preempt municipal action. “We decided that it was best to just remove that from the bill instead of bicker over it,” Ammon said during debate.

Members described the remaining provisions as focused on equal treatment and on limiting special, targeted rules for digital-asset miners. Under the amended text discussed in committee, “No state or local government agency or subdivision thereof shall set a specific limit on sound decibels generated from noise, including digital asset mining, other than the limits set by the political subdivision and any local noise ordinances,” language the sponsor said was changed after municipal association feedback.

The subcommittee also removed a separate section that would have addressed the “right to private keys,” assigning further work on that idea to the oversight commission. Representative Ammon said the private-key paragraph was “easier to just get rid of the whole paragraph and give that charge to the oversight commission to re-think that piece.”

Members questioned who would enforce the bill’s limitations. Representative Ammon and others noted that enforcement of statutory preemption would likely fall to the attorney general’s office or to affected parties through court action, not to a new state regulator. “If some state or local government [acts contrary], you would sue them,” the chair said in response to a question.

Several lawmakers raised electricity and grid impacts during discussion. Representative Burrows asked what would prevent a neighborhood from experiencing service problems if multiple large electricity loads were added. A panelist and committee members responded that large loads would generally require utility interconnection review and that digital-asset miners can act as a variable load that runs when prices are low and shuts down when prices rise, which can absorb excess capacity rather than creating sustained peaks.

The subcommittee recorded a sequence of votes on amendments. An early procedural motion to advance “amendment 0138h” passed on a hand count (committee members present counted six in favor). Later, the committee approved amended language identified in the hearing as amendment 0445h; the clerk recorded the final tally as 7–1. The subcommittee then took a separate straw vote to send the measure forward to the full committee; members present counted eight in favor on that straw vote.

Committee members emphasized the bill’s stated intent: to prevent municipalities from singling out blockchain mining with rules that would not apply to other industrial users (for example, in power-rate treatment or noise rules). Supporters described the measure as “prophylactic” — a preemptive measure to prevent local ordinances from targeting blockchain mining firms — and said the changes narrowed earlier language after consultation with municipal stakeholders.

The proposal still leaves several regulatory and policy questions unresolved, including which existing state offices would handle complaints and whether the oversight commission will draft any future private-key rulemaking. The committee’s changes removed several contested passages and instructed staff and stakeholders to continue work ahead of further committee consideration.

The subcommittee hearing record shows the sponsor and seconder on the primary motions as Representative John Ammon (mover) and Representative Speer (seconder). The subcommittee discussion and votes occurred during the committee’s Commerce and Consumer Affairs subcommittee session.