The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee said he will oppose any increase in funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission until the agency, which oversees the futures exchanges and financial derivatives, is reauthorized. “For the CFTC, this Committee has done its work twice over the past two years and moved two bipartisan reauthorization packages through the House of Representatives, with no corresponding action in the Senate,” Conaway said a statement. He said it was a “a failure of our institution” for Congress to allow agencies to operate outside of the traditional budget process.
While the Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over CFTC’s activities and can authorize funding, the Appropriations Committee determines annually how much money will go to it. The bill approved by the committee proposes $250 million for CFTC in fiscal 2016, the same as this year but $72 million below the White House request. Conaway said CFTC funding is up by 29 percent since fiscal 2013. The House has not scheduled a vote on the $143.9 billion USDA-FDA appropriations bill, which includes CFTC funding.