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Next Week, Corporate Congress Votes on Pro-Wall Street Bill, Talks Regulations

Business for DemocracyCorporate Congress is in session next week and here are some of the public interest attacks Public Citizen is keeping an eye on:

  • The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on H.R. 2289, the “Commodity End-User Relief Act.” This bill is a give-away for Wall Street speculators being masked as a pro-farmer bill. The first sentence of the Committee’s report explains that this bill “will better protect farmers and ranchers” who use the commodity markets. Yet the text of the 63-page statute itself makes reference to farmers exactly one time and instead is filled with provisions that will severely undermine financial reform. In short, these provisions will create barriers that restrict the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from adopting strong financial reforms that protect consumers and the public. Check out a letter (PDF) Public Citizen sent to representatives detailing just how much damage this bill would do to undermine the authority of the CFTC.
  • At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing titled, “Examining the Federal Regulatory System to Improve Accountability, Transparency and Integrity.” This committee has not previously weighed in on federal regulatory debates, so it is expected that this wide-ranging hearing will touch on a variety of regulatory process themes, including but not limited to judicial review. Public Citizen President Robert Weissman will testify on the importance of a strong and effective regulatory process that protects the public’s health, safety and financial security and the environment. Weissman will point to the need to fix a regulatory process that currently acts too slowly to prevent health and safety disasters and needs fewer, not more, layers of review.