The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is facing a lot of hurdles, including a lack of resources. But it has been moving quickly to draft rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank law.
That law gave the CFTC the bulk of authority for dealing with over-the-counter derivatives and expanded the agency’s jurisdiction from the $40 trillion futures market to include the nearly $300 trillion swaps market.
The CFTC is required to complete the rules mandated by the financial overhaul within one year of the law’s passage. But Congressional Republicans are considering delaying the July 2011 deadline. They say the Commission is moving too quickly.
A former CFTC division director, Michael Greenberger, says that the complaints are an effort by Wall Street to delay implementation of rules that could have prevented the financial meltdown. He noted the irony of the complaints: “People are always making fun of bureaucracy as being slow-moving,” he said. “This one isn’t.”