The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill intended to make it easier to develop new cotton futures contracts. The law now requires all cotton tendered under a futures contract listed in the United States to be sampled and graded by the USDA. HR 2620, approved by the committee, would exclude foreign-grown cotton from the requirement of USDA inspection. “This restriction has hampered the development of new cotton futures contracts designed to hedge against market risks for foreign-grown cotton or U.S. cotton merchandised abroad,” said the Agriculture Committee. In a statement, Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway said the bill would make a “narrow but important change” in futures regulation. The top-ranking Democrat, Collin Peterson, said the bill “will modernize cotton marketing by giving American-based futures exchanges the ability to use a new tool to handle foreign-grown cotton and foreign delivery points.”
Similar legislation was filed in the House and Senate last December. The House passed its version but it died in the Senate when the congressional session ended.
The House committee also approved HR 2647 “to return resilience to over-grown, fire-prone forested lands” owned by the government.