Steve Lynch: “I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I rise today in strong opposition to the bill before this House today, H.R. 1256…”

“I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I rise today in strong opposition to the bill before this House today, H.R. 1256, the Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act. It should be called the Wall Street Bailout Certainty Act because that's the actual effect this is going to have. It will do serious and irrevocable harm to our efforts to rein in the reckless behavior of Wall Street. In the words of our own Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, this bill will ``blow a hole'' in the hard-fought derivatives reforms we passed 3 years ago. Section 722 of the Dodd- Frank Act gives the CFTC authority to regulate overseas derivatives that have a direct and significant effect on the commerce of the United States. If my colleagues need an example, I harken to the ranking member's example of why this cross-border authority is so critically important, and that's the case of AIG, the insurance giant. AIG engaged in increasingly complex and risky derivatives bets on the subprime mortgage market out of its AIG Financial Products subsidiary in London. And because there was virtually no oversight of derivatives markets, AIG Financial Products was able to deal in the shadows. And when the housing bubble burst, no one, not its directors, not its counterparties, not even its regulators, knew just how deeply in trouble AIG was.…”