A House Appropriations subpanel today voted along party lines to turn down an amendment that would fully fund the federal agency charged with regulating speculation in the oil and gas futures markets.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) today offered the measure to boost funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the fiscal 2013 agriculture spending bill. Members of the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee voted down the amendment 8-5, then passed the appropriations bill by voice vote.

The bill, which in total provides $19.4 billion in discretionary spending for agriculture and related agencies, will go to the full House Appropriations Committee for a vote. The legislation's discretionary funding would be $365 million, or 1.8 percent, below current levels.

It would provide $180 million for the CFTC, $25 million below current levels.

By not providing the full $308 million that the Obama administration requested for the commission, the bill "sets up the CFTC for failure," DeLauro said.

Her concerns were echoed by the subpanel's three other Democratic members and by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, who sat in on the hearing.

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler has defended the budget request, which would be a 50 percent increase over the commission's current funding level of $205 million. The commission, he told subpanel members at hearings earlier this year, needs the increase to carry out the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

The act requires the CFTC to regulate the derivatives market and set position limits to curb excessive speculation in futures markets, including in the oil and gas markets.

Democrats have repeatedly pointed to speculation as a leading factor in soaring gas prices. They have warned that decreasing the CFTC's budget could make the country susceptible to the same kind of financial crisis that gripped the country in 2008.

"We ought to make the CFTC whole so it can do what it's designated to do in law," said Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), ranking member on the Appropriations subpanel.

The amendment by DeLauro included no cuts to offset the proposed increase. The Connecticut Democrat said that if House Republicans had kept to the budget deal agreed on last year, there would be funding for the requested increase.

The subpanel's chairman, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), countered that the CFTC's budget has increased 85 percent since 2008. He questioned whether speculation led to an increase in gas prices, noting that studies reached differing conclusions.

He also said the CFTC was not making use of electronics and digital tools to monitor the markets and instead hiring unneeded manpower.

"We need a new cop on the beat, but that new cop is electronics," Kingston said, "and we have given them more than adequate money for IT and lassoed it off to be used only for IT, and yet that account keeps getting robbed for personnel. We do have a philosophical disagreement on the way the CFTC is using its resources."