ABA and State Association Letter Requesting an Extension of the Comment Deadline on the GENIUS Act Proposed Rule

Dear Ms. Miller,

The American Bankers Association (ABA) and the undersigned state bankers associations (collectively, "the Associations") jointly request that the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) extend the deadline for public comments on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on GENIUS Act Broad-Based Principles for Determining Whether a State-Level Regulatory Regime Is Substantially Similar to the Federal Regulatory Framework (NPRM) by 60 days after the issuance of a final rule by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) implementing the GENIUS Act for entities subject to the OCC's jurisdiction (OCC GENIUS Proposal).

I. Grounds for Extension

The NPRM is substantively tethered to the OCC GENIUS Proposal, which has not yet been finalized. The dependency is not incidental. Treasury's NPRM on state-level regulatory regimes is directly contingent on the OCC's final framework. The NPRM defines the "Federal regulatory framework" against which state-level regulatory regimes will be assessed as encompassing, in key part, "any interpretations [of the GENIUS Act], or regulations thereunder issued by the OCC and published in the Federal Register."

Treasury expressly acknowledges that the broad-based principles described in the NPRM "took into consideration the OCC's proposed rule that was published in the Federal Register on March 2, 2026," that "the OCC's rule may change at the final rule stage," and that "Treasury may modify the final text of [its proposed regulation] to account for such changes." Until the OCC's rule is final, Treasury's proposal for assessing state-level regulatory regimes is necessarily provisional, and substantive comment on whether proposed state-level standards meet or exceed the Federal regulatory framework cannot be fully developed.

This issue is crucial for the Associations due to the implications for state legislative activity. Because state laws pertaining to state qualified stablecoin issuers must adhere to Treasury's "substantially similar" architecture, which in turn is a dependency of the OCC's GENIUS regulation, there is significant risk that the simultaneous action will result in state laws that do not pass muster and would be judged insufficient by the Stablecoin Certification Review Committee.

Instead, Treasury must send a strong signal to state legislatures that getting it right is more important than moving quickly to pass laws that might have to be amended later.

Download the joint state association letter to read the full text.