Mike Conaway: “Thank you to Mr. Garrett of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in full support of H.R. 2682, the Business Risk…”

“Thank you to Mr. Garrett of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in full support of H.R. 2682, the Business Risk Mitigation and Stabilization Act. As chairman of the General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee, I am pleased to see this bill brought to the floor today. The Business Risk Mitigation and Stabilization Act will offer legislative clarification for one of the most important points that underlies Dodd-Frank, which is that nonfinancial end users should not be required to post margin. In hearings and letters, Congress could not have been clearer in its intent to exempt nonfinancial end users from being required to post margins for their risk mitigation transactions. Yet, despite our clear intent, regulators have proposed rules that could result in margin requirements for these end users. Every dollar that a business has tied up in a margin account is a dollar it cannot spend on job creation or other productive business purposes. The Chamber of Commerce has recently estimated the costs of requiring these end users to post margins could reach billions of dollars and cost over 100,000 jobs, all over the clear and concise objections of Congress. This legislation simply affirms the original position of Congress that nonfinancial end users do not need to tie up scarce resources to participate in the swaps markets. Much like H.R.…”