Dunn v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, 519 U.S. 465, 8 (1997)

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472

DUNN v. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMM'N

Opinion of the Court

the existence of a futures contract does not guarantee that currency will actually be exchanged. Indeed, the Commission concedes that, in most cases, futures contracts are "extinguished before delivery by entry into an offsetting futures contract." Id., at 30 (citing 1 T. Snider, Regulation of the Commodities Futures and Options Markets § 2.05 (2d ed. 1995) (hereinafter Snider)); see also Munn & Garcia 414. Adopting the CFTC's reading would therefore place both futures and options outside the exemption, in clear contravention of Congress' intent.

Furthermore, this interpretation would leave the Treasury Amendment's exemption for "transactions in foreign currency" without any significant effect at all, because it would limit the scope of the exemption to "forward contracts" (agreements that anticipate the actual delivery of a commodity on a specified future date) and "spot transactions" (agreements for purchase and sale of commodities that anticipate near-term delivery).9 Both are transactions "in" a commodity as the CFTC would have us understand the term. But neither type of transaction for any commodity was subject to intensive regulation under the CEA at the time of the Treasury Amendment's passage. See 7 U. S. C. § 2 (1970 ed., Supp. IV) ("term 'future delivery,' as used in this chapter, shall not include any sale of any cash commodity for deferred shipment or delivery"); Snider § 9.01; J. Markham, The History of Commodity Futures Trading and Its Regulation 201- 203 (1987). Our reading of the exemption is therefore also consonant with the doctrine that legislative enactments should not be construed to render their provisions mere surplusage. See Babbitt, 515 U. S., at 698 (noting "reluctance to treat statutory terms as surplusage"); Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Pueblo of Santa Ana, 472 U. S. 237, 249 (1985).

9 See Snider § 9.01 (defining "spot transactions" and "forward contracts").

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