Updated, 3:39 p.m. | The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of Timothy G. Massad, a former corporate lawyer, as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of Wall Street’s toughest watchdogs.
The Senate committee also approved the nominations of Sharon Y. Bowen and J. Christopher Giancarlo as commissioners. The three now await full confirmation by the Senate.
But in twist, Ms. Bowen’s confirmation was thrown into question after two senators, Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, and David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, raised objections to her nomination.
Ms. Bowen, a former securities lawyers at Latham & Watkins, has come under scrutiny from both the left and the right. On the left, consumer advocates have questioned whether her experience representing some of Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions could influence her decisions as commissioner. On the right, she has been accused of not having enough experience.
On Tuesday, Mr. Chambliss voted against her nomination, saying she was unqualified. After the meeting, Mr. Vitter, who is not a member of the committee, announced that he would place a hold on Ms. Bowen’s nomination, citing concerns about her role as acting chairwoman at the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, an industry fund that works to return money held by failed brokerage firms like MF Global.
Mr. Vitter expressed disappointment over the fund’s decision not to return money to victims of R. Allen Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Mr. Vitter has urged SIPC to reconsider the matter and sent two letters to Ms. Bowen this year, according to a statement he released on Tuesday.
“Under Bowen’s leadership, SIPC has completely failed to protect the Stanford Ponzi scheme victims, instead siding with its Wall Street members,” Mr. Vitter said in the statement. “That sort of leadership, and complete lack of responsiveness to Congress and the S.E.C., has no place at the C.F.T.C.”
Mr. Gensler’s confirmation was also delayed by senators who questioned his credentials in 2009.
All three nominations come at a critical time for the agency.
If confirmed, Mr. Massad would succeed Gary S. Gensler, who became chairman of the agency after the financial crisis and who was given the task of establishing tougher rules on derivatives and futures as part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. For Mr. Massad, the focus will be on enforcing these new rules.
“Today, the C.F.T.C.’s role is even more important because it has the responsibility to bring much-needed regulation to the markets for over-the-counter derivatives,” Mr. Massad said at a committee hearing a month ago.
The agency sharpened its teeth during Mr. Gensler’s tenure. Under Dodd-Frank, the commission’s purview was expanded from the $40 trillion futures industry to the $400 trillion derivatives market. Under its new mandate, the agency issued fines to big financial institutions like Barclays, UBS and JPMorgan Chase.
The three nominated commissioners all bring years of Wall Street experience to their posts. Mr. Massad was a lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore for more than two decades before he went on to become an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department in charge of winding down the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Mr. Giancarlo, who would fill the Republican seat left by Jill E. Sommers, is a senior executive of the interdealer broker GFI Group. He has promised to resign from GFI if confirmed.
An earlier version of the caption that accompanied this article misidentified the law firm where Timothy G. Massad worked before joining the Treasury Department. As correctly identified in the article, it was Cravath, Swaine & Moore, not Cravath & Swain.