CFTC Nominee Says He’ll Prosecute Abuses

A Bush nominee who played a role in easing government oversight of energy products trading promised to prosecute any market manipulation vigorously.

But Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee who presided at a confirmation hearing for Walter Lukken and another nominee as members of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, voiced misgivings about the agency’s ability to prevent market abuses.

The other nominee, Sharon Brown-Hruska, is closely associated with former Enron Corp. board member Wendy Gramm. Lukken, an Agriculture Committee aide named by President Bush to the commodity futures agency, was a primary author of the 2000 legislation, known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

At the hearing, Lukken and Brown-Hruska promised vigilant investigation and punishment of fraud or market manipulation.