PANews reported on March 28 that according to zerohedge, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill on March 26 that proposed to ban the Federal Reserve from issuing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The Texas Republican senator's bill can be seen as a companion bill to the anti-CBDC legislation of Minnesota Republican Congressman Tom Emmer. Both bills state that the ban does not include open, permissionless and private dollar-denominated currencies, which need to "protect the privacy of U.S. coins and physical currencies."