January 26, 2026
The Honorable John Boozman
Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
U.S. Senate
Dear Chairman Boozman and Members of the Committee:
As this Committee debates amendments to the Digital Commodities and Intermediaries Act, National Taxpayers Union reiterates our strong opposition to Senator Marshall’s (R-KS) amendment expanding
harmful government mandates on payment networks. While NTU does not take a position on the underlying crypto bill, we believe that the offered proposal mirroring the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) is not germane to cryptocurrency legislation and would have significant consequences for our economy. Should an amendment vote be taken on the CCCA, we urge you to vote no.
The CCCA is a backdoor price control on credit card routing networks and would direct the Federal Reserve to draft rules requiring credit cards issued in the United States to offer at least two unaffiliated payment network options for point-of-sale and online transactions. It would be the largest federal intrusion into payments since enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (P.L. 111-203), which few would consider to have had a positive consumer impact.
The CCCA is a poorly designed attempt to artificially increase market competition by requiring card-issuing banks to provide merchants with at least one credit card network to choose from other than Visa or Mastercard when processing credit card transactions. The authors believe that gifting market share to others will reduce credit card interchange fees if more cost-effective networks exist, and that merchants will pass the resulting cost savings on to consumers.
Beyond the obvious government overreach into businesses’ affairs, the CCCA will ultimately harm consumers. It will most certainly destroy many benefits and perks that consumers have come to love from their credit cards, and result in several harmful changes, including: higher annual fees, reduced credit access, and fewer cash back rewards. The consequences will be no different than the last time Congress interfered with interchange mechanics. At a time when credit card balances are at all time highs, and Americans can ill afford further squeezes to their spending power, the CCRA should be rejected by the Senate.
Just last week, 28 conservative, consumer, and free market advocates sent a letter opposing the recent full introduction of the CCCA.
As NTU has written in the past, “we believe the provisions would be incredibly damaging to taxpayers by implementing price controls and constricting the free competition of credit card processors. This bill would do little to nothing to dampen inflationary pressure on taxpayers and would in fact harm taxpayers’ access to critical credit card benefits and programs that many rely on, especially in times of need. The mandates in the legislation would also encourage merchants to divest from advanced payments networks in favor of cheaper, less secure, and less reliable alternatives. This would result in user data being at risk due to weakened cybersecurity for electronic payments putting the financial stability of millions of taxpayers at risk.”
As you consider regulation of America’s cryptocurrency industry, we ask you not to attach more regulatory burdens to America’s payments network. We urge you to oppose the CCCA or similar legislation should it come up for a vote.
Sincerely,
Thomas Aiello
Senior Director of Government Affairs