Drums along the Potomac; (News Story)

August 16, 2011

On pages 15-18, the editor discusses the CFTC IG report on the agency's failure to engage in meaningful cost/benefit analysis in its Dodd-Frank rulemaking, stating that "key aspects of Dodd-Frank implementation now have real potential to be scuttled."

"But we are now convinced that the CFTC will likely find itself hauled into court to explain to a judge why exactly it didn't feel the need to perform the necessary cost-benefit analysis to key rules now under consideration. Considering all the work that agency staff, commissioners and market participants have funneled into this process, were it all to come to a screeching halt because the commission general counsel, Dan Berkovitz, and presumably the chairman, Gary Gensler, didn't think economic analysis of key market provisions was worth the effort, then we hope that this sort of hubris should be rewarded appropriately."

Cross References: CEA Sec. 15(a); Office of the Inspector General, A Review Of Cost-Benefit Analyses Performed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Connection with Rulemakings Undertaken Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@aboutcftc/documents/file/oig_inv…