Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008

COMMODITY MARKETS TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - September 18, 2008)

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, a couple of things about this. Number one, the fact that this is a bipartisan bill is really a breakthrough. The fact is that having the support of the Agriculture Committee, ranking member and the chairman, indicates that there is a coming together on something that is incredibly important.

We have had a lot of debate about how this is going to affect the price of gas, but the way, as I understand it, the Agriculture Committee approached this, was how are we going to protect consumers? How are we going to protect farmers? How are we going to protect fuel dealers and airlines that have the burden of buying in the futures market because they need price stability, and they need a futures trading market in order to have price discovery, so that coming together was about recognizing that the institutional mechanism of a commodity futures trading commission has to be in service of those farmers in the Midwest.

It has to be in service of airlines that are trying to get us from here to there, of our fuel dealers that are delivering home heating fuel to our people at home. We can have a debate about how much prices are going to come down. In fact, since this committee took this under active consideration, the prices have come from 150 to 100. We can argue about what's the cause and effect, but it certainly was contemporaneous and had a big impact.

But what is happening in our economy is that basic institutions that have served us well, mortgages for homeowners, or the futures trading for farmers and others, have been hijacked for other reasons, not just to help a person buy a home or help a farmer have a price, but to become a commodity itself used by Wall Street to speculate for financial manipulation and market reasons.

That is not what these institutions are about, and the Congress has a fundamental decision before it. Are we going to stand up for American farmers and American consumers and provide protection for the institutions that they absolutely need, we need, or are we going to allow them to continue to be hijacked by Wall Street for other reasons?

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