Representative Tom McHenry believes Gary Gensler’s SEC has disregarded standard practice when going after crypto.

While responding to questions during an Oct. 5 House Committee on Financial Services hearing, Gensler emphasized that prohibiting crypto does not fall within the SEC’s mandate, stating: “That would be up to Congress.”

“Many of these tokens do meet the test of being an investment contract, or a note, or a security,” he added, emphasizing the need to bring crypto “within the investor protection remit of the SEC.”

“It’s a matter of how we get this field within the investor consumer protection that we have and also working with bank regulators and others — how do we ensure that the Treasury department has it within anti-money laundering, tax compliance,” Gensler said.McHenry also cited comments made by Gensler to the Committee in 2019 while he was teaching at MIT in which he criticized past rulings from the SEC classifying Bitcoin and Ether as commodities.

When asked of his current views on the matter, Gensler stated: “I’m not going to get into any one token, but I think the securities laws are quite clear — if you’re raising money […] and the investing public […] have a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others, that fits within the securities law.”