The Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) responded to a letter issued by Democratic legislators last month to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan. The group tried to correct misunderstandings regarding Bitcoin (BTC) mining and its environmental impact in the letter.
The authors said, among other things, that the original letter “confuses datacenters with power generation facilities”. This is the letter that Democratic Representative Jared Huffman and 22 members of Congress signed.
Bitcoin Mining Council letter counters lawmakers’ supposed misconceptions
The Bitcoin Mining Council letter outlines alleged inaccuracies in the content supplied to Regan. This has over 50 signers and was written by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter, and Darin Feinstein of Core Scientific.
The original letter’s allegation that Bitcoin mining facilities across the country are “polluting communities” is incorrect, according to BMC, because Bitcoin mining facilities do not produce pollution. In their statement, power-generating facilities make up the pollution.
The writers also dispel what they consider to be plain lies. The claim that “a single Bitcoin transaction could power the average U.S. household for a month” is an example.
EPA letter to Bitcoin miners by lawmakers
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ letter encourages the EPA to ensure that cryptocurrency miners follow “foundational environmental statutes like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act”. And goes on to raise other issues about cryptocurrency mining, such as electrical waste and noise pollution. The BMC letter focuses on eight concerns and rebuts them thoroughly.
The letter also mentions that many miners engage in high-performance computing, which has various applications other than Bitcoin and digital assets.
Some of the crypto industry’s most famous names and supporters signed the Bitcoin Mining Council letter. Block Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey, Fidelity Investments senior vice president Tom Jessop, Fordham Law School professor Donna Redel, Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein, and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci have all signed the document.