The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is ready to regulate a US. carbon market, Bart Chilton, chair of the CFTC’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee said Thursday.

“Our agency is standing ready to oversee the trading of derivatives in these critically important markets, to ensure the safety and soundness of all such activity,” said Chilton. He stressed the need to protect consumers, enable businesses to operate more efficiently, and benefit the environment.

“The CFTC has a longstanding history of federal regulation of derivatives trading — from monitoring exchange activity to ensuring financial responsibility to carrying out disciplinary and enforcement actions –and we need to get this right. It is too important to our economy, to individuals, and to the world not to,” he added.

Chilton noted the agency’s oversight of emissions trading for sulfur dioxide, and the positive effects those programs have had on the environment. “You don’t even hear anyone talking about acid rain anymore,” he noted, “and it is my hope and expectation that we can achieve a similar success with other greenhouse gas emissions products.”

Chilton will chair a meeting of the EEMAC on May 13 in Washington, at which issues relating to carbon emissions trading are expected to be addressed.

IE