Sponsors (2)
The bill centralizes and strengthens economic analysis and liquidity-aware rulemaking to improve regulatory quality and market functioning, but it loosens competitive hiring safeguards and concentrates advisory appointment power, increasing risks of reduced transparency and politicized advice.
Taxpayers and financial institutions will get dedicated economic analysis and formal cost–benefit review integrated into the Commission’s rulemaking, improving regulatory quality and transparency.
Financial institutions and market participants will have regulators explicitly consider market liquidity when setting policy, reducing the risk that new rules unintentionally impair trading liquidity.
Taxpayers and the public could face politicized economic advice because concentrating advisory power in a single Office and allowing appointment flexibility may enable partisan appointments that bypass competitive safeguards.
Financial‑sector job applicants and taxpayers could see reduced hiring transparency and weaker merit‑based selection because the bill allows filling competitive‑service positions without standard competitive hiring procedures.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates an Office of the Chief Economist inside the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to provide economic advice, conduct economic analysis and research, and perform regulatory cost–benefit analysis. The Office is led by a Chief Economist and may include professional staff appointed under specified federal excepted‑service appointment authority. Also updates CFTC statutory language to broaden certain references to “markets under the jurisdiction of the Commission” and adds “considerations of market liquidity” to the list of considerations the Commission must take into account. The measure is organizational and procedural; it does not appropriate funding or set implementation deadlines in the text provided.
Introduced February 11, 2026 by Robert P. Bresnahan · Last progress February 11, 2026