US advocate of regulation takes on Libor In recent years, Gary Gensler has climbed Kilimanjaro and finished nine marathons and one 50-mile race. As a US regulator, he faces another tough challenge by taking on Libor, the benchmark that is critical to the world's financial markets. As chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mr Gensler has remade the agency from a Washington backwater in a time of financial upheaval to a key drafter of rules for the once unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market. The agency made international headlines when it announced last week a $450m settlement with Barclays over allegations the bank attempted to rig benchmark interest rates, including the London Interbank Offer Rate. The investigation over Libor involves regulators around the globe and ensnares about 20 financial institutions. Mr Gensler is also taking on the British Bankers" Association, which sponsors the Libor rate-setting process. "I don't think the public should be left at risk of a trade association, with the most sophisticated, largest banks, setting a rate that's so critical to our credit cards, our student loans, our mortgages," Mr Gensler told the Financial Times. That concern extends to other price-setting processes affecting natural gas prices, energy, metals and agricultural products. "These benchmarks matter; we all lose if the markets aren't reporting accurate information," said Mr Gensler. The CFTC, with a budget of $205m and 690 employees, is the smallest US financial regulator. It was created in the 1970s to oversee the agricultural markets and its oversight has expanded to include financial products and derivatives. Mr Gensler's intense lobbying during the Dodd-Frank legislation ensured that his agency would have a big say in how derivatives markets are regulated. Despite spending his early years working on Wall Street, Mr Gensler, 54, has earned a reputation as a measured advocate of regulation. "I have enormous regard for the importance of markets but I think my experience from the past is that markets work best when there are some commonsense rules of the road," he said. From Baltimore, Mr Gensler landed a job at Goldman Sachs after business school and worked there for 18 years, rubbing shoulders with Jon Corzine and Robert Rubin, who later poached him to join the US Treasury department. Later, Mr Gensler turned to politics and helped draft the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law. After working on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008 he joined the transition team of President Barack Obama, which landed him his position at the CFTC. It has not been an easy ride. Democratic lawmakers placed a hold on his confirmation over concerns he would not be tough enough. Dennis Kelleher of Better Markets, an organisation advocating stronger financial regulation and a Democratic staffer at the time, was "extremely sceptical." Now, he says: "I don't think anyone can fairly criticise Chairman Gensler for either being too close to Wall Street or doing anything to favour Goldman Sachs." Among the signature rules to pass Mr Gensler's CFTC are limits on the size of speculative positions in commodities. In April, the CFTC defined who among the biggest participants in privately negotiated swap markets would be subject to extensive oversight. When first proposed in December 2010, it exempted traders that dealt less than $100m in swaps annually. After months of internal debate, the commission passed it 4-1 with a higher threshold of $8bn. While other agencies have lagged behind, under his stewardship the CFTC has passed 33 of the roughly 50 rules under Dodd-Frank. Privately, people close to other commissioners say they sometimes feel in the dark about draft rules until Mr Gensler's staff has circulated them almost fully formed. His relations with Congress have been tense. Mr Gensler was lambasted by lawmakers after the collapse of MF Global, which was run by Mr Corzine. The CFTC was the primary government regulator, though day-to-day monitoring of the futures broker was delegated to the biggest US futures exchange. The CFTC has also been the target of budget cuts in the House of Representatives. One lobbyist says it may be personal: "My view is the reason that the House keeps cutting his budget is about him," the lobbyist said of Mr Gensler. He makes a point to be right and tell them they're wrong.