Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentlelady. With all due respect to my good friend from Texas, I take a little bit of offense saying that the Agriculture Committee was not serious in what we were doing here. We take very seriously our responsibility in overseeing the CFTC, and this bill is, without a doubt, the most responsible bill that's been put together in this area in this Congress. The reasons we're bringing it up is not because of the reasons that were iterated by Mr. Sessions, it's because we're doing our job. And maybe there's problems over in the Senate, but I can't control that. I just want to make sure that we don't have the same kind of problems happening on Wall Street in the CFTC that we see going on in these other areas where they have all of these crazy derivatives and everything else that they've dreamed up on Wall Street. What they've done is they've created investment in the commodity market that, in my opinion, has no business being in there. This was something that was never intended. They're using the regulated market outside the position limits to offset that risk, which I think we've decided is wrong. And so we're fixing that. This bill is supported by Mr. Goodlatte. We passed this out of the Ag Committee. There were no Republican amendments offered in the committee, and on the floor of the House we had 291 votes, we had a two-thirds vote until the leadership came up and started twisting arms and it went down to 275. So what we're doing is our job, and I guess I take offense when somebody criticizes us for doing our job. Now in the case of Mr. Conaway, I apologized to him personally last night. I think I made it clear in the committee. I had a personal situation last week. I wasn't here. This happened, the bill failed right before the August recess, nobody was around. I think he has a legitimate point.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I would yield.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Well, I'm sure that there's been a lot of cases around here where we would have liked more time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I don't think that's exactly what we said.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. He and I had discussions about this issue. I think he and I were in agreement. The problem was the other folks that had bills that we had incorporated into the overall bill were not in agreement, and they're still not in agreement. And I think even if we would have worked on this last week, I'm not sure we would have come to an agreement by today. I apologize. I was on a personal situation last week so I wasn't here. When I got back, we had a blowup on country of origin labeling and some other issues. So I think if Mr. Conaway would--we had discussions last night, and I think we've got a way to move forward. But I'm not sure we're going to come to a resolution that's going to be agreeable to everybody. We may still have to have some kind of a, I don't know, process to try to work this out because there's people that think what Mr. Conaway is doing is opening up too big of a hole, if you will, in the hedge exemption. And so we've got to work through that.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Well, that was not my decision. What we're doing is the work of the Agriculture Committee. We asked them to bring this bill up so that we could get it passed. So that we're doing our work. We're doing our part.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I don't know exactly. Here is my point. At the time this bill failed after it had passed, I talked to our leadership and they assured me that they would bring it back under a rule in September. If I would have been here last week, Mr. Conaway and I would have had these discussions and we wouldn't be in that part of things. But this was always the intention to bring this back, and we don't have a lot of time. We can't wait until next week to bring this up. We're going to run out of time. I told the leadership that I wanted this bill brought up. They have brought it up, and I'm glad they did.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I would yield.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 6604, including corrections in spelling, punctuation, section and title numbering, cross-referencing, conforming amendments to the table of contents and short titles, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, first of all, we were delayed in getting something done with this bill back in July when, at one time, we had the votes to pass this under suspension, and then the votes eroded away. This is going to delay the process again. And beyond delay because it says ``promptly,'' it will have the effect of us not being able to move this bill in the House before we're out of here for the elections. As chairman of the committee and somebody that's worked on this, I disagree with that. I think we need to move this, irrespective of whatever's going to happen in the other body or with the administration. I think this has the effect of killing the bill because we won't have the time to deal with this. Lastly, I think the CFTC has the ability to do this under the legislation. Apparently Mr. Moran doesn't trust the CFTC. We have people over here that don't trust the CFTC, but I think they could deal with this. I don't think there's anything that precludes them from accomplishing this in the underlying legislation. I would ask people to oppose the motion, and I would say that I believe this kills the bill for this session. I yield back my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Goodlatte, for the great work he did with us on this bill. Like any bill, it's not perfect but it's, I think, a step in the right direction. We take very seriously our responsibility and the jurisdiction that we have in making sure that the CFTC is doing the proper oversight, the proper job, and that we're getting convergence of these markets so that they work for people that need them on a day-to- day basis. This is almost the exact same bill that received 275 votes on a bipartisan basis on July 30. At one time we were up to 291 votes. At one time we had two-thirds, but it eroded away. I'm confident today that we will have the support to move this bill through the House, and hopefully our friends in the other body will move because I believe we have uncovered some things that need to be addressed in legislation, and we are doing that in this legislation. With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask everybody to support the bill.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to recognize the vice chairman of our caucus and the leader on this issue, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) for 2 minutes.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I said when we first considered this bill in July, this is a great bipartisan effort that Mr. Goodlatte and I have worked on. This bill addresses the realization that the trading volume and the futures market for physical commodities has increased dramatically in recent years. This increase includes vast amounts of capital from parties that are not traditional futures market participants, and this has been my concern, these participants, such as the index funds, pension funds, and some hedge funds. The presence of this additional capital has raised concerns in our committee that the resulting futures market prices may not accurately represent the forces of supply and demand, nor may they fundamentally support at the local selling points where those in the producing and selling of the commodities are doing business. Mr. Speaker, this debate is more than just the presence of speculators in the futures market. As I said on the floor in July, this lack of convergence--and this is one of the big problems that I am concerned about--the lack of convergence that we're getting in some of these agricultural markets where we have a $2.40 difference between the futures price and the actual cash price of wheat in some of our markets, these are the things that really concerns us on the committee. So we have put forward transparency so that we know what's going on in these markets, and we're giving the authority for some position limits on these nontraditional investments that were created that really have nothing to do with the underlying commodity market. And in my opinion, the more I learn about this, I think this has some effect on why we're not getting convergence in those markets. We believe this is a modest step that addresses the concerns that have been identified to the committee, and we're going to continue to work on this. We're going to continue to get information from the CFTC and other sources as to what is going on in these markets, and we will see how this progresses through this Congress. But I can tell people if this is not resolved in this Congress, we will take this up in the next Congress to address these issues. With that, Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 6604.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch) who has been a leader on this issue.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, we saw the information, and some of us became convinced all the more that the bill we have put on the floor is the appropriate bill. I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), one of our leaders and a leader on this issue.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I want to take a second to commend my ranking member for the outstanding work that did he with us on a bipartisan basis in this committee to bring this bill forward. We take our jurisdiction very seriously, and we think we have produced a good product. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6604, the Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008, will strengthen oversight of the Commodity Futures Market for energy and agricultural commodities. This bill will be almost entirely identical to the version that we considered under suspension here on July 30, 2008. There are two changes that are purely technical and corrected typographical errors, and there are two other changes that we made in the bill to make sure the provisions are entirely within the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Committee. One strikes section 10(b) regarding the Inspector General of the CFTC. The other, section 13(b) is modified so the Commodity Futures Trading Commission does the reference study instead of the Comptroller General. Mr. Speaker, on this bill we have gotten more information in the committee, and Mr. Etheridge had a hearing that he chaired last week. I would at this time yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) who has been working with me tirelessly on this to talk about the process and explain the bill.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1449, I call up the bill (H.R. 6604) to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to bring greater transparency and accountability to commodity markets, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6604, the Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008, will strengthen oversight of the commodity and futures markets for energy and agriculture commodities. It toughens position limits on oil and other futures markets as a way to prevent potential price distortions caused by excessive speculative trading. It extends CFTC oversight to previously exempt over-the-counter markets and calls for new full-time CFTC staff to improve enforcement, prevent manipulation, and prosecute fraud. I want to thank my friend and ranking member, Mr. Goodlatte of Virginia, for the work that he has done on this legislation, not only in committee, but in the many meetings that we have had. We have worked I think and done our work in the best bipartisan fashions, and I thank him for that. I also want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina, the chairman of the General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee, Mr. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, for taking the lead on CFTC oversight on our committee and for his work on this legislation. If it is all right with the gentleman from Virginia, in light of the work Mr. Etheridge has done, I will yield to him to do his presentation now and then I will finish mine later. I want to recognize Mr. Etheridge for 3 minutes. He has been a real leader on our side on this issue.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6604) to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to bring greater transparency and accountability to commodity markets, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'm now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).