Swap Data Repository and Clearinghouse Indemnification Correction Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise today in support of H.R. 1847, the Swap Data Repository and Clearinghouse Indemnification Correction Act of 2015.
I want to thank Mr. Hurt and Chairman Hensarling for allowing the Agriculture Committee to manage time with them today. The members of our committee have always appreciated the close working relationship that we have with the Financial Services Committee on these financial and regulatory issues.
H.R. 1847 is a targeted correction to remove barriers to information sharing. Dodd-Frank currently requires indemnification agreements from foreign regulators requesting information from U.S. swap data repositories or derivatives clearing organizations.
The agreements state that the foreign regulators will abide by certain confidentiality requirements and indemnify the U.S. commissions for any expenses arising from litigation relating to the request for information.
Unfortunately, the concept of indemnification does not exist in many foreign jurisdictions. Therefore, some foreign regulators cannot agree to these requirements. This may hinder our ability to make workable data sharing arrangements with those regulators and, ultimately, fragment the marketplace by encouraging them to establish their own data repositories.
H.R. 1847 addresses this potential data sharing problem by removing the indemnification requirements from current law, while maintaining existing provisions requiring confidentiality obligations.
This technical correction has been a longstanding priority for Congress. Similar legislation passed the House in the 113th Congress by a vote of 420-2 and passed the House again this year as part of H.R. 37, the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act.
Additionally, this identical language was included in H.R. 2289, the Commodity End-User Relief Act, after a small technical change was offered by Ms. Moore and Mr. Crawford and accepted by the House.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 1847 to ensure that regulators and market participants have access to a global set of swap market data.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to thank both the Democrats and the Republicans who have worked on this.
The House has acted several times in a bipartisan manner on this legislation--420-2 on very similar legislation. We have passed this multiple times; so I would just encourage all Members to support this piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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