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Swap Data Repository and Clearinghouse Indemnification Correction Act of 2015

Floor Speech

Date: July 14, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Finance and Banking

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the madam ranking member for this opportunity to speak on H.R. 1847.

I also want to thank all of my cosponsors on this legislation: Representative Huizenga, Representative Crawford, and Representative Sean Patrick Maloney.

Mr. Speaker, the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees passed this legislation with bipartisan support and without controversy in 2013, 2014, and 2015. This bill has passed the House several times with overwhelming margins, and it is supported by the SEC.

At the Bipartisan Policy Center's 5-year look-back at Dodd-Frank just last week, the question was put to former Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Jill Sommers: What is yet to be done in Dodd-Frank that needs to be done? Her answer: fixing the indemnification provision.

Here we are today, and we have an opportunity to do this with that bill. Let me try to make this really simple.

A major objective of the Dodd-Frank Act was to improve transparency and to eliminate systemic risk mitigation in global derivatives markets. This bill is a technical fix to ensure that the goal of swaps transparency is realized.

In fact, Dodd-Frank requires post-trade reporting to swap data repositories. During the crisis, these SDRs did not exist.

As a matter of fact, to quote Warren Buffett when he described the situation we were in, he said:

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked.

This is a really important feature in Dodd-Frank. However, as written, a provision threatens the reporting regime and threatens to fragment the collection of data by imposing an unnecessary requirement on foreign SDRs and regulators that would impede compliance.

By eliminating this unnecessary requirement, this bill makes it possible to achieve the goal of bringing comprehensive swap trade information, transparency, and oversight to the global derivatives markets.

Regardless of your position on derivatives or on Dodd-Frank, this bill makes sense, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

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