Commodity Exchange Act and Securities Exchange Act Amendments

Floor Speech

Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding.

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I would like to thank my colleagues from the House Agriculture Committee, Mr. Gibson and Ms. Fudge, for their continued leadership on this issue; also, I would like to thank Ms. Moore and Mr. Stivers for working with my committee to introduce this compromise language as a stand-alone bill for the House's consideration.

Almost identical language was included in the Agriculture Committee's CFTC reauthorization bill, H.R. 4413. I am proud to say that we moved that legislation through the Ag Committee by a voice vote and then passed it here on the House floor with overwhelming bipartisan support this summer. I am hopeful that this bill can receive the same strong bipartisan support.

H.R. 5471 will provide American businesses the certainty they need to continue managing their risk in the most efficient manner possible. Today, businesses all over America rely on the ability to centralize their hedging activities to reduce their counterparty credit risk, to lower costs, and to simplify their financial dealings.

It is important to remember that these transactions between affiliated corporate entities pose no systemic risk, and they should not be regulated as if they do. These transactions are used to reduce an individual firm's risk by consolidating a hedging portfolio spread across a corporate group.

By doing this, firms can find savings with offsetting positions between affiliates and can reduce the need for the group to seek hedges in the wider market.

H.R. 5471 will prevent the redundant regulation of these harmless interaffiliate transactions that would tie up the working capital companies with no added protections for the market or benefits for the consumers. I strongly support this bipartisan, commonsense legislation, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

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