Opening Statement, Meeting of: The Agricultural Advisory Committee

Chairman Gary Gensler

May 19, 2011

Good morning. Thank you Commissioner Dunn for chairing today’s meeting of the Agricultural Advisory Committee and for your leadership.

Though there will be many opportunities to thank and congratulate Commissioner Dunn for his more than six years of service to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and 25 years of service to the Federal Government, I want to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge Commissioner Dunn.

Mike is a trusted colleague who works incredibly hard in service to the American public at the CFTC. His significant and thoughtful contributions have strengthened all of our efforts at the Commission to promote transparency and lower risk in the derivatives markets to protect the American public. I am honored to have worked with Mike and to call him my friend.

I also join Commissioner Dunn in thanking my fellow Commissioners and the expert panelists and staff that have joined us this morning.

This meeting comes at a crucial time in the CFTC’s rule-writing process to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. At this point, we have substantially completed the proposal phase of our rule-writing to implement the Dodd-Frank Act. Since the President signed the Dodd-Frank Act last July, the Commission has promulgated rules covering all of the areas set out by the Act for swaps regulation, with the exception of the Volcker Rule, for which the Act set a different timeline.

With the substantial completion of the proposal phase of rule-writing, the public now has the opportunity to review the whole mosaic of rules. This will allow market participants to evaluate the entire regulatory scheme as a whole.

I am interested in the views of this panel on the whole mosaic of rules and how they will implicate the agricultural derivatives markets. In addition, there are two other topics about which I hope to hear from our panelists. First, I am interested in their views on the CFTC’s proposed agriculture commodity definition. Second, I would like to hear their views on how we should treat agricultural swaps. Other important rulemakings on which I hope today’s panelists will comment include position limits and hedge exemptions, the swap dealer definition, the end user exception and margin requirements for uncleared swaps.

Again, I’d like to thank Commissioner Dunn and my other fellow Commissioners as well as the Agricultural Advisory Committee members for participating in today’s meeting. I look forward to learning from the presenters and having a productive dialogue.

Last Updated: May 19, 2011