More Than 130 Groups Call on CFTC to Shut Down 'Dystopian' Water Futures MarketWarning Wall Street against commodifying what has been treated si...

Published on by

More Than 130 Groups Call on CFTC to Shut Down 'Dystopian' Water Futures MarketWarning Wall Street against commodifying what has been treated si...
More Than 130 Groups Call on CFTC to Shut Down 'Dystopian' Water Futures Market
Warning Wall Street against commodifying what has been treated since ancient history as "a common right for everyone," more than 130 civil society groups on Monday demanded that federal regulators shut down the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's water futures market.

Food & Water Watch organized the petition, which was sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a year after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opened the world's first market for water futures contracts, based on water rights in drought-plagued California.

"Water is necessary and essential for life and is simply not a commodity."
"Water index futures trades are contrary to the public interest as they involve the trade of an essential resource," wrote the groups, which also included Public Citizen, For Love of Water (FLOW), the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

The organizations argued that the CME's water futures market—which the exchange self-certified before its launch, assuring the CFTC that it met the requirements of the commission's regulations—undermines California state law and violates the CFTC's own trading restrictions.

Attached link

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/20/more-130-groups-call-cftc-shut-down-dystopian-water-futures-market

Taxonomy