Witness list released for Commodity Futures Trading Commission hearing

Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, on Friday shared the list of witnesses who will testify before the committee’s hearing on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulatory issues.

The hearing, which start at 10 a.m. Thursday, will focus on how those issues are impacting end-users and market liquidity.

Timothy Massad, CFTC chairman, will testify during the first panel. Panel II will include Terrence A. Duffy, executive chairman and president of CME Group in Chicago, Illinois; Bruce Barber, general manager or Archer Daniels Midland Co. in Forsyth, Illinois, testifying on behalf of the Commodity Markets Council; Jeffrey L. Walker, senior vice president and chief risk officer for the Alliance for Cooperative Energy Services in Carmel, Indiana; Michael Bopp, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP in Washington, DC, who will testify on behalf of the Coalition for Derivatives End-Users; and Sean O. Cota, co-founder of the Commodity Markets Oversight Coalition in Bellows Falls, Vermont.

The issues covered by the hearing are in line with Roberts’ goals during his first year as chairman of the Senate Ag Committee.

“My priority for the committee this year is to ensure that farmers and ranchers and other rural stakeholders have a voice,” he explained at a press conference earlier this year.

The hearing will take place in 106 Dirksen in the Senate Office Building.