How about this?

1. Only require certain businesses to accept cash. Make sure this includes some classes of business that most people have fairly reasonable access to. Grocery stores and convenience stores, for example.

2. Require those business to sell prepaid debit cards for cash. The debit cards must have no extra fees for purchase. A $20 debit card for example would cost $20 cash. No ID is required to buy these cards.

3. The debit cards would be subject to the normal processing fees upon use.

4. Other business can choose to not accept cash, but they must access the prepaid debit cards, and cannot charge any fees for them that they do not charge for other non-cash payment methods.

As I understand it the identity rules around gift Visa/MasterCard are because of money laundering.

The point here is that doesn't really require much money to be a target.

What are these business sectors exactly? I assume we are talking about brick-and-mortar businesses only, because cash being problematic in online commerce is a no-brainer, so that consequently isn't what this EFF demand is about. In which brick-and-mortar style businesses is cash handling more expensive than card handling, assuming the same total amount of money is handled in both cases?

When it comes to transaction costs of cash versus credit cards in the US, the first thing that comes to my mind are these gas stations offering two prices for the same type of gas: a lower one for cash payment and a higher one for credit card payment. I guess gas stations can be ruled out of being in that ominous list of business sectors?