The W.H. had sought a $308 million budget for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Congress slashes financial watchdog

In a blow to Wall Street reforms, President Barack Obama’s budget request for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would be cut by more than a third under a House-Senate conference report which the Appropriations leadership expects to file Monday night.

In light of the CFTC’s increased role in overseeing the derivatives market, the administration had sought $308 million for the new fiscal year that began Oct. 1. But under pressure from House Republicans, the agreement now is expected to come in closer to $205 million, a virtual freeze at current appropriations levels.


The full details won’t be released until late Monday, but several persons familiar with the report confirmed the outlines to POLITICO.

Asked to comment on the budget numbers, Bart Chilton, a Democratic commissioner said: “We have seen the results of an ill-funded and ill-equipped regulator. It isn’t a pretty picture. Congress can fund our agency and we can do the job they have instructed us to do or we will have to pick and choose priorities. We certainly can’t do it all without the needed resources.”

The larger spending package—which includes the CFTC—covers as many as five cabinet departments together with several major science and space agencies. Attached to the measure is a stop-gap spending resolution to keep the remainder of the government funded through Dec. 16, and the leadership is pushing to complete final action by Congress this week.

The entire endeavor poses a major test of how the two parties will work together to implement the 2012 appropriations caps agreed to in August.

In the course of the talks, House Republicans agreed to restore hundreds of millions of dollars previously cut from Democratic domestic priorities. But the relatively small CFTC budget has remained a lightning rod for conservatives who opposed the Dodd-Frank reforms adopted in the last Congress.

Indeed Democratic negotiators found themselves in a two front war—battling not just for CFTC dollars but also against legislative riders which the GOP sought to attach to the CFTC’s budget.

The House had approved just $171.9 million for the agency in June—a real cut from the $202.3 million provided in 2011. And given the pressure to get a deal, the final agreement appears to be a split between the House bill and the higher $240 million recommended by the Senate Appropriations Committee in September.