Customer Protection and End User Relief Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DelBENE. Mr. Chair, I would like to thank Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member Peterson, as well as Subcommittee Chairman Conaway and Ranking Member Scott, for their work on this very important bill.

I would also like to thank Congressmen Gibson and Vargas for cosponsoring this amendment. This amendment is the only bipartisan amendment we are considering today. It is straightforward and will provide needed clarity.

This amendment simply states that a court shall affirm the CFTC's assessment of the costs and benefits of a rule. This would have the practical impact of limiting the ability of individuals and firms to challenge the CFTC in court, in an attempt to stop a rule from being implemented based on the cost-benefit analysis.

The amendment also provides for an exception in the case of an abuse of discretion by the Commission. If no such abuse occurs, a court must uphold the CFTC's assessment.

At a time when the CFTC is still implementing a litany of rules, including a number of crucial rules required by the passage of Dodd-Frank, we should not be inhibiting the CFTC's progress and adding to their workload, especially when the agency is already struggling with insufficient resources for the task at hand.

To be clear, the CFTC is already required to consider the costs and benefits of its actions and regulations. It just does not provide a formal analysis of the costs and benefits.

If we are going to mandate that the CFTC provide a formal cost-benefit analysis when developing regulations, which can be time consuming, we should trust their analysis and not let the rules get tied up in costly and time-consuming litigation.

Why go through such a rigorous process, like a cost-benefit analysis, and expend all of the time and energy that goes with it, if the end result can be easily derailed by a lawsuit filed at the eleventh hour.

I firmly believe that this amendment improves this bill to reauthorize a critical Federal regulator, and I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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