Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens the CFTC's in-house economic expertise and liquidity-aware rulemaking but does so by concentrating analytic authority and loosening competitive hiring safeguards, which could reduce transparency, introduce bias, and increase compliance burdens for market participants.
Financial institutions and federal employees will gain a dedicated in-house economic analysis capability at the CFTC that informs rulemaking and cost–benefit assessments.
Financial institutions will face regulatory decisions that formally consider market liquidity, reducing the risk of unintended market disruptions under CFTC oversight.
Federal employees and the CFTC will be able to hire specialized economists more quickly via excepted-service appointments, improving the agency's capacity for timely economic analysis.
Financial institutions could face more complex or slower CFTC rulemakings and higher compliance costs because expanded analytical requirements and formal liquidity analysis add time and complexity to rule processes.
Financial institutions may be affected by biased regulatory outcomes if concentrating analytic authority within an internal office skews CFTC rulemaking toward that office's economic perspectives.
Federal employees and taxpayers could experience reduced hiring transparency and fewer procedural protections because excepted-service hiring bypasses competitive-service rules.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a Chief Economist office at the CFTC, authorizes staff appointments with certain excepted-service procedures, and adds market liquidity as a statutory consideration.
Creates a new Office of the Chief Economist inside the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that will provide economic analysis, regulatory cost–benefit work, and research to advise the Commission. It authorizes the Commission to appoint professional staff to the Office using certain excepted-service hiring procedures while clarifying those hires do not permanently convert competitive-service positions. Also updates statutory language to refer to “markets under the jurisdiction of the Commission” instead of “futures markets,” adds “considerations of market liquidity” as a factor for Commission decisions, and makes minor relettering changes to conform with the insertion of the new office.
Introduced February 11, 2026 by Robert P. Bresnahan · Last progress February 11, 2026