The CFTC announced that the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee will hold a public meeting on July 29, 2015. The meeting will focus on the CFTC's proposed rules with respect to position limits and trade options, as well as its recent final interpretation concerning forward contracts with embedded volumetric optionality. The meeting will also explore the ways in which these initiatives will impact the energy and environmental markets. See: CFTC Press Release.

The CFTC's proposal to apply its margin requirements for uncleared swaps in the context of cross-border transactions (the "Proposal") was published in the Federal Register. The CFTC called the Proposal a "hybrid" of the entity and transaction-level approaches outlined in prudential regulators' previous margin proposal and indicated that the approach of the Proposal is intended to be "closely aligned" with that which was taken in the margin proposal. Comments on the proposal must be submitted by September 14, 2015. See: 80 FR 41375. Related news: CFTC Issues Proposed Rule on Cross-Border Margin

The Asset Management Group of SIFMA ("SIFMA AMG") submitted comments to the SEC concerning its proposed rule on the application of certain Title VII requirements to security-based swap transactions. In the letter, SIFMA AMG recommended that the SEC not impose Title VII's customer protection requirements on transactions in which neither the dealer nor its counterparty is a U.S. person. SIFMA AMG argued that when asset managers execute security-based swap transactions with non-U.S. dealers on behalf of non-U.S. clients, the non-U.S. clients "do not expect U.S. customer protections to apply, nor

SIFMA submitted comments to the MSRB regarding the delayed compliance date for the first Form G-45 filings that are required under MSRB Rule G-45 ("Reporting of Information on Municipal Fund Securities"). SIFMA advised the MSRB to focus on the quality of the filing system itself as opposed to the speed of its implementation. See: SIFMA Comment Letter; MSRB Rule G-45. Related news: MSRB to Collect Additional Data Regarding 529 College Savings Plans (Reg. Notice 2014-03) (February 17, 2015); SEC Approves MSRB Rule G-45 as Modified by Amendment No. 1 (February 24, 2014).

Nineteen U.S. Senators (the "Senators") sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") encouraging it to move forward with its rulemaking on publicly available small business loan data. Regulation B is required by Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act ("Small Business Data Collection"). It is listed on the CFPB's Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan as a Long-Term Action item under development. The Senators asserted that the implementation of Regulation B may help to improve lending practices, and that particular attention should be paid to aiding businesses that operate and