The White House last week forwarded to the Senate the nomination of Reuben Jeffery III to be a commissioner and chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Jeffery, who had been special assistant to President Bush and senior director for International Economic Affairs, would replace James E. Newsome, who left the agency last year to become president of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Commissioner Sharon Brown-Hruska was named acting chairman in the interim.

The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which has jurisdiction over CFTC nominations, now must hold a hearing on Jeffery’s nomination and then forward it to the full Senate for confirmation.

If Jeffery is confirmed by the Senate, all five seats on the CFTC will be filled for the first time in several years. His term as commissioner would expire on April 13, 2007. In addition to Brown-Hruska, the other existing commissioners include Michael V. Dunn, Fred Hatfield and Walter L. Lukken.

Jeffery’s background also includes the Department of Defense where he was the representative and executive director of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) at the Pentagon. Prior to joining the CPA in May 2003, he was special adviser to the president for Lower Manhattan Development.

In addition, Jeffery spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he lived and worked in Paris, London and New York and specialized in the financial services sector. He previously practiced corporate law in the New York City office of Davis Polk & Wardwell. He received his BA from Yale University and his law degree and MBA from Stanford University.

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