WASHINGTON, June 12, 2012- The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government approved Fiscal Year 2013 appropriation levels for several agencies today, which include a 50 percent increase for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) above the FY 2012 level. 

The bill provides $308 million “to enable the CFTC to fulfill its mission to protect futures markets from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices,” according to the subcommittee statement. The increase of $102.7 million is intended to support staff increases and technology enhancements for the agency to meet the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act.

"At this funding level, the CFTC will have sufficient cops on the beat to promote swap market transparency, to lower risk to the financial system, and to help protect the American people from future bailouts of the financial industry,” said Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler today.

He added that the CFTC needs additional resources to oversee the swaps market, which he said is eight times larger than the futures market the agency traditionally oversees.   

The Senate Subcommittee bill provides $22.991 billion in total FY 2013 base discretionary funding, which is $1.26 billion higher than FY 2012 and $341 million lower than President Barack Obama’s request. Other provisions of the bill include appropriations to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), among others. The bill summary is available here

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