The American Soybean Association (ASA) and a coalition of ag stakeholders sent a letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee, supporting two bipartisan nominees to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Senate Ag Committee held their nomination hearing on July 27, 2017.

Dawn DeBerry Stump has been nominated as a Republican commissioner; Rostin (Russ) Behnam as a Democratic commissioner. Both are former Senate staffers. Additionally, the nomination of Brian Quintenz was previously reported out of the Senate Ag Committee.

The Commission consists of five commissioners appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to serve staggered five-year terms. The President, with the consent of the Senate, designates one of the commissioners to serve as Chairman. No more than three commissioners at any one time may be from the same political party. Currently Commissioner Chris Giancarlo is serving as acting chairman of the Commission; the only other commissioner is Sharon Bowen, who will step down when a replacement is confirmed.

“Now more than ever it is important to have strong advocates for agriculture at the CFTC,” the letter states.  “As CFTC’s oversight responsibility and regulatory footprint has grown, the agricultural futures markets remain as vital and integral to our industry as they were before the financial innovation that led us to today’s derivatives markets… Given the vacancies that have existed for a number of years, we also consider it timely to have all five Commission seats filled. Therefore, we respectfully request the Senate confirm the nominees as soon as is practical to ensure a fully functional Commission moving forward.”

The full text of the letter can be found here.