DeLauro Continues Fight to Fully Fund CFTC

Joined by Reps Frank, Markey on Amendment to Meet President’s Request

Washington, DC – Today on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) continued her campaign to keep the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from failing before it ever gets a chance to succeed. DeLauro, along with her Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced an amendment to provide the CFTC with an additional $128 million, matching the President’s budget request. Below are DeLauro’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

This amendment would restore full funding, per the president’s request of $308 million, to the Commodity Futures Trade Commission. These additional $128 million in funds would be raised through the sale of new leases.

The current funding level for the CFTC sets the Commission up for failure. If the current funding level remains as is, Wall Street will be able to continue the risky manipulation of derivatives that brought on the last collapse. Big Oil will continue to enjoy inflated profits every year due to erratic and artificially swollen oil prices.

The losers will be the American people, who will pay more at the pump, or even worse. At this low funding level the House Majority sets up taxpayers to pay for yet another costly bailout of Wall Street.

Republican and Democratic experts agree that the CFTC needs to be fully funded. Republican Gene Guilford, President and CEO of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association, served in the Commerce and Energy Departments under Ronald Reagan, and has said the current funding level for CFTC is “horribly counterproductive.” It would, quote, “weaken its ability to enforce the oversight laws necessary to protect the American people.”

According to Brooksley Born, former chair of the CFTC, the Commission is quote “desperately in need of additional funding.” This budget, she argues “would leave us all vulnerable to future financial crises.”

According to Gary Gensler, the current chairman of the CFTC, the agency is only ten percent larger than it was in the 1990’s, even as the futures market has grown to approximately $37 trillion notional. And through the Dodd-Frank reforms, Congress has added oversight of the $300 trillion swaps market, which is even more complex and increased the number of trades under their jurisdiction by 334% in 2011.

Gensler says, “It is as if all of a sudden the National Football League expanded eight times to play more than 100 games in a weekend,” with the same amount of referees.

We know for a fact that the risky behavior in derivatives is what that precipitated the 2008 financial meltdown and is still happening – we have seen it with MF Global and JP Morgan. We also know for a fact that excessive speculation in oil markets causes gas prices to oscillate wildly. Even the CEO of Exxon has said as much.

We are not here to represent of Wall Street, we are here to represent the American people. We need the CFTC to oversee the risky behaviors and to enforce the law. We are here to represent the American taxpayer, not Wall Street or big banks. The current funding that is being pursued by the majority is reckless.

I urge my colleagues to put Main Street over Wall Street and support this amendment to help make sure CFTC has the resources to do its job.