Wall Street regulator’s budget grows, shrinks in single amendment

{mosads}Confused? Our colleagues over at the Floor Action blog explain:

The amendment under discussion Tuesday night, from Rep. Rosa DeLauro
(D-Conn.), would increase funding to the level of Obama
administration’s request, but then decrease funding by the same amount.
The amendment would therefore have no effect, and was meant to launch a
debate on the floor. Republicans tried to shut off debate by simply
accepting the meaningless amendment, but Democrats rejected this in
order to have the debate.

The CFTC has been handed, by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the large task of writing most of the rules overseeing financial derivatives for the first time. The trading tool was widely blamed for exacerbating the financial crisis.

The White House requested $308 million for the agency to help with the Dodd-Frank workload in its budget request. But Republican appropriators want to give the agency just $172 million in fiscal 2012.