Washington, D.C. – Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets, issued this statement on legislation introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway to reauthorize the Commodities Future Trading Commission, which includes provisions that would leave U.S. taxpayers on the hook for Wall Street’s dangerous overseas gambling:

“This legislation is right out of Alice in Wonderland: it prohibits U.S. watchdogs from applying U.S. law to Wall Street’s dangerous overseas derivatives gambling while letting foreign regulators apply foreign law to conduct in the United States on Wall Street. This is indefensibly outsourcing the protection of U.S. taxpayers to foreign regulators who have repeatedly failed to protect their own taxpayers.

Voting for this bill is voting to stick American taxpayers with the bill for Wall Street’s overseas gambling losses. That’s what happened in 2008 when the U.S. had to bail Wall Street’s biggest banks out of their bets with AIG which did its gambling overseas in London. Deregulating Wall Street caused the 2008 financial crash. Deregulating Wall Street again will have the same results. Congress should stop trying to roll back financial reforms designed to protect taxpayers and fully fund the CFTC cops on the Wall Street derivatives beat.”

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Better Markets is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes the public interest in financial reform in the domestic and global capital and commodity markets. Better Markets advocates for transparency, oversight and accountability with the goal of a stronger, safer financial system that is less prone to crisis and failure thereby eliminating or minimizing the need for more taxpayer funded bailouts. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.com.