A top Senate Democrat wants a government watchdog to investigate mass layoffs at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and their impact on the CFTC’s ability to regulate markets.
Agency staff has shrunk by 25% since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, and despite Chairman Michael Selig saying the CFTC is hiring, the agency was reportedly offering buyouts and early retirement to its staff as recently as June, Politico reported.
“The CFTC has simultaneously seen a precipitous drop in enforcement activity,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Orice Williams Brown, acting comptroller of the Government Accountability Office. “Therefore, I request that GAO investigate staffing cuts at the CFTC and their impact on the CFTC’s enforcement capabilities and broader mandate to regulate American derivatives markets.”
In 2024, the CFTC brought 58 enforcement actions and collected $17.1 billion in monetary relief. But in the year leading up to January 2026, 11 enforcement actions brought in just $1 billion in monetary relief, Reuters reported.
Since 1974, the CFTC has governed futures and options contracts traded on regulated exchanges. The agency has also regulated swaps since the 2010 passage of the Dodd-Frank Act.
“A well-functioning CFTC is vital to promoting the health and stability and integrity of America’s financial markets,” Warren wrote. “Recent reporting suggests that the CFTC may be inhibited in meeting this mandate due to staffing cuts that threaten to weaken its enforcement.”
The CFTC’s responsibilities have grown of late and may continue to grow, Warren alleged. It asserted exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets in April, and “crypto market structure legislation working its way through Congress … could require significant CFTC resources to implement.”
Some of the recent staff cuts, Warren alleged, “may have aligned with industry interests.”
The GAO should “thoroughly review” staff cuts, Warren said, including the extent to which they complied with federal laws and regulations, the extent to which they’ve impacted to agency’s ability to fulfill its mandate, and the extent to which cuts have “contributed to, detracted from, or had no impact on the prevalence of fraud, waste, and abuse at the CFTC.”
A spokesperson from the GAO confirmed that the agency received Warren’s letter.
“GAO has a process it goes through to determine whether we do work and when, which we are working through right now,” the spokesperson said.
A CFTC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
