Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I rise to join happily in the amendment offered by my neighbor and close friend from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) and the gentlewoman from California, Ranking Member Waters.

One of the crucial achievements of the Dodd-Frank bill, of course, was to drag a massive and, in some cases, very dangerous derivatives market into the light of day by giving CFTC authority to look at the instruments which brought down AIG, which were involved in the London Whale, which when used incorrectly can create a systemic risk to the system, and this is a market that has been growing very, very rapidly.

In 2010, the total derivatives market was about $124 trillion. That is trillion with a t. That is a multiple of the size of the U.S. economy. Today, it has almost doubled that, $223 trillion. Now, these are securities that can cause all sorts of havoc if not adequately regulated.

This amendment, as Ms. DeLauro pointed out, in no way expands bureaucracy. We are not saying spend more money, though there is a very powerful argument for spending more money on an agency that has been tasked to take on a massive new market. It is simply providing flexibility.

The question before this House on this amendment comes down to a very simple question: We are either going to provide discretion to the CFTC to run to where they think the danger is--and if they think that their IT is insufficient, they can spend this money on the IT--they are either going to run to where the danger is or we, as a House, are going to decide that we are such crack IT professionals that we should tell the CFTC that they must spend this money on their system. Folks, that doesn't make any sense.

Therefore, I urge support for this amendment to provide the CFTC the flexibility that they need in regulating this market.

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