Bart Chilton was first nominated by President Bush and confirmed as Commissioner by the U.S. Senate in 2007.  In 2009, he was re-nominated by President Obama and reconfirmed by the Senate.  Chilton has served as the CFTC’s Chairman of the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC).  His career spans 25 years in government service: working on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, and serving in the Executive Branch during the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations.  During that time, he served as a Senior Advisor to U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic Leader of the United States Senate, and as the Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman.

Commissioner Chilton has been a vocal consumer advocate and proponent of thoughtful regulatory reform.  He has often been a lone voice on the Commission for policies to rein in speculative interests and impose position limits to avoid excessive trading concentration.  Many of the issues he fought for over the years became law as part of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed by President Obama in July of 2010.  Chilton has been an outspoken advocate of the need for greater regulation of large commodity speculators that he calls “massive passives,” and of high-speed, computerized “cheetah” traders.  The Commissioner is a frequent opinion/editorial writer who has recently published Ponzimonium—How Scam Artists are Ripping Off America, a consumer education tool telling the captivating stories of real life Ponzi scams.  He is often quoted in news stories and appears regularly on financial and business television programs in the U.S. and abroad.