President Donald Trump announced Monday he plans to nominate Dan Michael Berkovitz, a former official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM), to join the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Berkovitz served as EM deputy assistant secretary for planning, policy, and budget from 1995 to 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Berkovitz’s other federal jobs included general counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, assistant counsel at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and senior staff lawyer for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He is now a partner at the WilmerHale law firm.
Berkovitz would serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring April 13, 2023. He would fill a vacant CFTC slot last held by Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen, who served from June 2014 through September 2017, according to a commission spokesperson.
The commission’s mission is to support healthy and transparent futures and options markets. It became an independent agency in 1974 when it assumed oversight of agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn, and cotton, previously regulated by the Agriculture Department. In 2010, the CFTC’s authority was expanded to include oversight of the previously unregulated swaps market thanks to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The CFTC has up to five commissioners, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. No more than three commissioners may come from one political party. If confirmed, Berkovitz would get one of the seats reserved for Democrats.
Berkovitz is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law School and vice chair of the American Bar Association Derivatives and Futures Law Committee.
