Jared Huffman, a U.S. congressman who advocates for increased oversight of crypto mining operators, has accused the White House of failing to act on “current and projected crypto asset mining on power system reliability and adequacy He has reportedly accused the U.S. energy agencies of failing to act on his call to conduct “a reliability assessment of operations. However, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Allison Clements argues that crypto mining should not be singled out from grid studies.
the agency reviewing the White House’s recommendations
U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman has reportedly inquired about the unwillingness or reluctance of some U.S. federal agencies to respond to the recommendations contained in the recently released White House report on cryptocurrency mining.
According to Huffman, who represents California and is a member of the Democratic Party, the silence of federal agencies could well mean that “this problem [environmental damage allegedly caused by crypto mining] is potentially worse.”
As noted in the Bloomberg Law reportU.S. energy and environmental officials have not announced plans to pursue potential efficiency standards or conduct energy use studies as required by the White House report. For example, Costa Samaras, the chief assistant for energy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, is quoted in the report as admitting that the agencies have yet to respond.
Samaras reportedly stated that “the agencies are reviewing the recommendations and will announce their commitments as part of the agencies’ processes and timelines.”
Meanwhile, Samaras’ counterparts at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Commission (NAERC) claimed that they have no plans to conduct reliability assessments specifically for cryptocurrencies because they already have safeguards in place in the event of a grid shortage.
Crypto mining should not be excluded from the grid study.
In areport titled “Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto Assets in the United States,”the White House stated that both FERC and NAERC, as well as regional organizations, “have been working to ensure that the reliability and adequacy of the power system reliability assessment of current and future crypto asset mining operations should be conducted.”
The White House report also urges the agencies responsible for collecting energy information to “consider collecting and analyzing information from crypto asset miners and electric utilities in a privacy-preserving manner to enable evidence-based decisions about the energy and climate impacts of crypto assets The report urges that “we will.
Unimpressed with the agency’s legitimacy, Huffman, who campaigned for increased oversight of crypto mining facilities, warned that if nothing is done, he will be forced to take action. He said.
If I don’t hear from them in the next few weeks, I am certainly going to pick up the phone and find out what is going on.
Meanwhile, Huffman’s fellow Democrat and FERC commissioner Allison Clements is quoted in the Bloomberg Law Report as arguing that crypto mining should not be excluded from the grid study.
“It is unclear to me that individual reliability assessments related to cryptocurrency mining should be separated from general reliability planning for a particular node, service area, region, or interconnection,” Clements reportedly said.
The FERC commissioner added that crypto mining is something on the agency’s radar, but she “has nothing to report in relation to anything coming soon.”
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