Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, while I recognize the many legitimate uses of derivatives in today's financial marketplace, I also believe it is critically important that derivatives be properly regulated so that end-users and consumers can reap their benefits without putting the larger economy at risk. For that reason, I think we need to tread carefully before making material modifications to the regulatory regime for derivatives established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act--and this note of caution is equally applicable to what might be described as piecemeal changes to Title VII of Dodd-Frank, given the inherently complex and interrelated nature of these sophisticated financial instruments.

In that regard, the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act would substantially revise Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act to permit a broader array of derivatives transactions--including those involving commodity swaps, equity swaps and certain credit default swaps--to occur inside federally backed financial institutions, rather than in separately capitalized subsidiaries as required under current law. Impacted institutions argue that this existing ``push out'' requirement for these categories of derivatives places them at a disadvantage relative to their foreign competition by increasing the cost of those transactions and by effectively preventing the netting of positions between themselves and their customers. Additionally, proponents of H.R. 992 argue that Section 716 confers no meaningful additional protection to taxpayers in light of the stronger capital, margin and clearing requirements created by Dodd-Frank, and that it might even work at cross purposes with the Orderly Liquidation Authority created in Title II of the legislation.

I am not opposed to making commonsense adjustments to improve the real world workability of the Dodd-Frank law. I want our financial institutions to be able to compete effectively for customers everywhere they operate. And I am not in favor of regulation that is either unnecessary or not accomplishing its intended objective in a cost-effective way.

It is possible that Section 716 will prove to be that kind of regulation, but right now it is too soon to tell. Of particular importance when evaluating the ultimate value of Section 716 is the final scope of the forthcoming Volcker rule. If the final Volcker rule provides a strict definition of what activities constitute bona fide ``hedging'' and ``market making'', then proponents' arguments for this legislation will be strengthened. If, on the other hand, the final Volcker rule includes an overly broad definition of these activities, then the protections intended by Section 716 could become more important.

Accordingly, I will be voting ``no'' on today's legislation, but remain open to revisiting this issue once the Volcker rule and other relevant rulemakings are finalized and in place.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source