February 15, 2018

Giancarlo: We’re Making Government Function More Efficiently for Taxpayers and Market Participants

Washington, DC — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today unanimously approved an amendment replacing the complex and confusing lettering for defined terms with a simple alphabetical list.

“When I first became Acting Chairman, I announced an agency-wide review of CFTC rules, regulations and practices to identify ways that our agency could function better,” said CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo. “I believe that we owe it to the American taxpayers and participants in the markets we oversee to operate efficiently and to make our existing regulations simpler, less burdensome and less costly. We dubbed this effort ‘Project KISS,’ which stands for ‘Keep It Simple Stupid.’ Today’s unanimous action is consistent with this theme, as it helps to remove unnecessary complexity from our rules and should help to make regulatory compliance less burdensome. I commend the staff from each of the Divisions who worked to advance this initiative and the support from my fellow Commissioners to helped make this long-needed action a reality.”

The amendment approved for publication in the Federal Register is an interim final rule that will amend the CFTC’s primary definitions regulation, Regulation 1.3. The purpose of these changes is to make the definitions section and the associated cross-references easier to navigate. The CFTC has determined further to amend cross references to Regulation 1.3 found elsewhere in CFTC regulations to refer back to this simplified list.

As an interim final rule, the CFTC may make further changes to the rule as a result of public comment. Comments to the interim final rulemaking may be submitted electronically through the CFTC's Online Comment Processand should be submitted on or before 30 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register. All comments will be posted on the CFTC’s website.

Last Updated: February 23, 2018