Political Quotes

“first, I commend the senior Senator from California and her cosponsor, the junior Senator from Illinois, for their amendment and their work on this very difficult issue dealing with derivatives and how to regulate them. To critics of the amendment, I suggest you put yourself in Senator Feinstein's shoes. She represents the largest State in the United States and one of the largest governments in the world. The State of California's GDP is larger than most countries' of the world. In the West, we are still feeling shock waves from the energy crisis that threatened California's and Nevada's prosperity and brought home to all of us that we are in uncharted territory with energy deregulation. Senator Feinstein inadvertently included metal derivatives with the energy derivatives that are the intended target of her amendment. Unlike energy derivatives which raise questions because of the recent energy crisis, metal derivatives have been sold over the counter for decades. The amendments in 2000 to the Commodities Exchange Act did not change this, and that was proper. They only clarified and confirmed the legality of these markets. Lumping metal derivatives together with energy derivatives would impose regulatory burdens that never existed even before the 2000 amendments and, of course, without justification; therefore, I offer this second-degree amendment to restore metal derivatives trading to exempt commodity status.”