(Dow Jones circulated the following on July 9.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate lawmakers Wednesday approved two spending bills allocating significant funding to reflect the impact of the historically high price of crude oil on the U.S. economy.
The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations subcommittee allocated $157 million in funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow the market regulator to enhance its oversight of crude oil trading in the face of prices spiraling ever higher.
Another subcommittee voted through a bill that would increase funding for public transit systems and Amtrak, as well as provide a substantial boost to the Highway Trust Fund, which is used to maintain the nation’s roads.
The bills will proceed to the main Senate Appropriations committee Thursday.
In this presidential election year, there is little chance the spending bills will be passed into law. Instead, a large single bill is expected at the end of the year carrying forward funding at 2008 levels.
The bills approved Wednesday signal the spending priorities of the Democratically controlled Congress.
The $157 billion in funding for the CFTC is $45 million more than the fiscal year 2008 levels, and $27 million more than President George W. Bush asked for in his budget.
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the Financial Services Appropriations subcommittee chairman, said the money was essential to allow the CFTC to more rigorously oversee trading in the oil futures markets.
“Trading in commodity markets has increased from about 500 million trades in 2000 to over 3 billion trades in 2007 – while at the same time, the CFTC’s staffing levels have declined dramatically,” Durbin said.
Durbin’s subcommittee’s spending bill also provides $938 million in funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission, $25 million more than the president requested. This additional money would support extra staffing for “oversight and enforcement of complex security products, credit markets in light of the subprime debacle, and credit rating agencies,” according to subcommittee documents.
Other regulatory bodies to receive increased funding include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to hire more employees in China and Asia; the Federal Communications Commission, to support broadband Internet development in rural and underserved parts of the country; and the Small Business Administration, for an increase in lending to smaller businesses.
The bill also included a 3.9% cost-of-living increase for federal employees.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chairman of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development subcommittee, said the extra funding in her panel’s spending bill was in reaction to the fact that “skyrocketing gas prices have meant that Americans are driving less and using transit more often.”
It provides extra funding to the Federal Housing Administration to help it to “extend new loans to keep families in their homes.”
It would boost funding for public transit by $734 million, and provides $1 billion in capital assistance to Amtrak.
It would shift $8 billion from the general government coffers to the Highway Trust Fund, the same amount that was taken out of the trust in 1998 when it was deemed by Congress to be running too high of a surplus.
More funding would also be allocated to the Federal Aviation Authority to enable it to hire additional safety inspectors and air traffic controllers.