CFTC

Floor Speech

CFTC -- (Senate - June 26, 2008)

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise for a few minutes this evening to talk about a couple events from today. First of all, the price of oil today hit over $140 a barrel--another, I think, tragic milestone as it relates to the impact on our economy and the challenges we face as oil prices continue to go higher and higher and higher.

I also note for my colleagues that the House took very aggressive action today in basically ordering the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, on an overwhelming 402-19 vote, to take action to utilize its authority, including its emergency powers, which is critical for the CFTC to do if it wants to have proper oversight of these oil futures markets.

Now, I know this is something we have been pushing here in the Senate, saying there are loopholes we still need to close. Many of my colleagues joined in a letter last month--22 of us--to the CFTC telling them to use their authority and to act aggressively. They came back with a half step saying they were going to start collecting new information from the British regulators that oversee some of our oil markets in the U.S.

We told the CFTC that was not good enough. We told them to use their existing authority to start collecting information directly from the InterContinentalExchange Futures Europe, a dark market that is subject to British oversight but operates in the United States under a CFTC staff no-action policy.

I think those pleas by us have basically gone ignored or at least half steps have been taken by the CFTC. So I was very pleased today that H.R. 6377 passed the House of Representatives 402 to 19. So there has been an outstanding margin of bipartisan support in the House of Representatives to pass a bill that requires the CFTC to use its existing authority, including emergency authority. This bill does not say the CFTC ``may'' utilize its authorities; it says they ``shall.'' So it is very direct. It says those broad emergency authorities that include investigating excessive speculation, reducing position limits--basically overall stricter position limits--and including limiting or suspending trading. These are things the CFTC has the power to do in its emergency authorities to make sure excessive speculation and manipulation are not occurring in the markets.

So I want to say I think this is a very bold step the House of Representatives has done. They did this very quickly today, and in a very aggressive, bipartisan fashion.

I hope the Senate would take the same aggressive measure as soon as possible, and in the same overwhelming majority, to show we are serious about reining in excessive speculation and potential manipulation in the oil markets.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.

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