[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 61 (Thursday, April 26, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT AVAILABILITY ACT

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                               speech of

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 25, 2012

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, while there is a legitimate role for 
swaps and other derivatives when it comes to managing risk, one of the 
inescapable lessons from the last economic crisis is the havoc those 
instruments can cause when they are insufficiently regulated.
  In an effort to make sure the abuses that led to the Great Recession 
never happen again, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act properly 
placed these kinds of transactions under far more meaningful prudential 
regulation. Just last week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission 
finalized the ``swap dealer'' rule at issue in today's legislation.
  Unfortunately, that final rule--already the product of compromise at 
the CFTC--is further weakened by the misleadingly named ``Small 
Business Credit Availability Act'' to the point where its ability to 
protect the public from the systemic risk it was originally intended to 
prevent is undermined.
  For example, we should not let big oil companies speculate in the oil 
futures markets without limit or oversight under the guise of hedging 
their commercial operations. Furthermore, we should not exempt vast 
swaths of our credit and debt markets from prudential regulation under 
the CFTC rule. Yet that's precisely what this bill proposes to do.
  Madam Speaker, we know where this road leads, and we simply can't 
afford to go back there.
  I support smart regulation that permits the legitimate uses of these 
instruments for the benefits they can provide while eliminating the 
speculative abuses that can cause the rest of us so much harm. And that 
is why I oppose today's legislation.

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