The Republican-controlled House passed a bill that would freeze the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for the next five years and require more analysis before it adopts new regulations. The bill, sponsored by House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway but not considered by his committee, was sent to the Senate on a party line vote, 239-182.
Conaway said the bill, HR 238, “makes narrowly targeted changes” to exempt so-called end users, such as utilities, airlines and food processors, that use swaps and other financial instruments to assure a supply of raw material and lock in prices, from some regulations aimed at speculators.
The senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, said the House should have limited itself to a simple reauthorization of CFTC. The budget freeze is a mistake, he said, “when every single witness before the Agriculture Committee last Congress told us the agency needs more resources to do its work.” Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the lead Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, criticized the budget cap and said the House bill “takes direct aim at rolling back important protections required by Wall Street reform, including speculative position limits.”