Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

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, as amended.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to now recognize the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for 2 minutes. He has been a leader, had, I think, numerous hearings, and his subcommittee has done a lot of work on this issue, along with his staff, so I recognize the gentleman for 2 minutes.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), who has been a leader and introduced bills and worked with us on this legislation, for 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield the majority leader 1 minute, and appreciate his work with us on this legislation.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman from Texas and assure him that it is not my intent or the intent of this bill to bar conventional hedgers from receiving a hedge exemption. Section 8 requires the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to define a bona fide hedge exemption, and I trust the Commission will use all of its expertise to strike the appropriate balance allowing for price discovery and risk management.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. The gentleman has my commitment.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) for 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I would be pleased to do so.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I'm now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), who is the Vice Chair of our caucus and has introduced bills in this area and been one of the leaders in working with us to come up with this compromise legislation, for 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. H.R. 6604 is not intended to affect FERC's current jurisdiction over regional transmission organizations or independent system operators. I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia's concern about this legislation's impact on FERC. As with the CFTC reauthorization in the farm bill, we do not see any impact in that area. I look forward to continuing to work with my friend and the Committee on Energy and Commerce regarding matters of mutual interest.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'm now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the Chair of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and also a leader on this issue, that's worked with us over this period of time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire how much time is left on each side?

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I've got one additional speaker here right now and potentially maybe one more.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'd be pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, a member of our committee who has worked long and hard on this issue, and we appreciate his involvement.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, I want to thank Mr. Goodlatte and assure him that there is one more person over here that agrees with him, that we should do everything we can to exploit all of our domestic energy sources, whatever they might be. And I would agree with him on that. I would add one other thing. In addition to that, we ought to promote conservation because we can probably save more energy with that than anything else that we do. So I'm for all of that. But we have this issue and we are addressing this, and I hope we can keep the focus on that. But again, I want to thank him for his help, and all the members of my committee. Our interest on the Agriculture Committee has been to make sure that we maintain these markets for our agriculture producers. This is where the commodity futures business started is in agriculture. We are much smaller markets now than energy and than financials. And we're concerned about what's going on with this additional money that's coming into the markets, in terms of the agriculture markets. We are lacking convergence in some of our ag markets. We have a situation where the basis is $2 difference between the future price of what somebody can get at the elevator. So we have issues here that we are very concerned about, and we have taken the steps that we think we have the information to be able to address. We're closing the London loophole. We're taking the look-alike contracts that are just a substitute for something that's on the regulated market and we're giving the CFTC some authority to put position limits on that part of the OTC market. But in the areas where we don't have enough information--which is considerable in the OTC market--in terms of how much of this is pension funds, how much is index funds, how much is hedge funds? Are they long or are they short? What's going on within that market? We don't have that information. So in this bill we are requiring the CFTC to come up with this information, bringing it back to us so that we can sort this out and figure out exactly what is going on with all this additional money that's coming into the marketplace. We've also asked the regulated market, the CME, to look into why we don't have convergence of the wheat market, why we had a problem with cotton here a few months ago. We are, we think, doing a responsible effort here to address a concern that's been raised by a lot of people, and we are looking forward to getting the rest of this information. We have a good bill, a responsible bill. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'm now pleased to yield to a leader on the Energy and Commerce Committee and energy issues in general, Mr. Markey from Massachusetts, 1\1/2\ minutes.

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. 6377.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the Chair of the House Agriculture appropriations committee who has been also very passionate in leading on this issue and also working in her committee to make sure that the CFTC has the resources they need to complete their task, the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for 3 minutes.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I'm now pleased to yield to my good friend and Blue Dog colleague from Utah (Mr. Matheson) for 2 minutes.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield to the gentleman from Maryland who has sponsored legislation in this area and has a passionate interest in this issue and has been very much involved, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), for 3 minutes.