Cite as: 519 U. S. 465 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
currency option is a transaction "respecting" foreign currency. We think it equally plain as a matter of ordinary meaning that such an option is a transaction "in" foreign currency for purposes of the Treasury Amendment.
Indeed, adopting the Commission's reading would deprive the exemption of the principal effect Congress intended. The CFTC acknowledges that futures contracts fall squarely within the Treasury Amendment's exemption, Brief for CFTC 30, and there is no question that the exemption of off-exchange foreign currency futures from CFTC regulation was one of Congress' primary goals.8 Yet on the CFTC's reasoning the exemption's application to futures contracts could not be sustained.
A futures contract is no more a transaction "in" foreign currency as the Commission understands the term than an option. The Commission argues that because a futures contract creates a legal obligation to purchase or sell currency on a particular date, it is somehow more clearly a transaction "in" the underlying currencies than an option, which generates only the right to engage in a transaction. Id., at 30- 32. This reasoning is wholly unpersuasive. No currency changes hands at the time a futures contract is made. And,
8 The amendment was enacted on the suggestion of the Treasury Department at the time of a dramatic expansion in the scope of federal commodities regulation. The Department expressed concerns in a letter to the relevant congressional committee that this development might lead, inter alia, to the unintended regulation of the off-exchange market in foreign currency futures. See S. Rep. No. 93-1131, pp. 49-50 (1974) ("The Department feels strongly that foreign currency futures trading, other than on organized exchanges, should not be regulated by the new agency") (letter of Donald Ritger, Acting General Counsel). The Treasury Amendment, which tracks almost verbatim the language proposed by the Department, cf. id., at 51, was included in the legislation to respond to these concerns. Id., at 23. The CFTC is therefore plainly correct to reject the suggestion of its amici that the Treasury Amendment's exemption be construed not to include futures contracts within its coverage. See Brief for Chicago Mercantile Exchange as Amicus Curiae 17-18; Brief for Board of Trade of City of Chicago as Amicus Curiae 10.
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