Bart Chilton: Financial Regulator, Poet

Writing rules for Wall Street doesn't afford much opportunity for artistic license. Unless, that is, you're Bart Chilton.

Mr. Chilton, a Democratic member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is prone to waxing poetic on arcane financial matters. But the muse was speaking to him on Thursday, when he fired up two rounds of verbal fireworks in describing the process of putting the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul into effect.

First, there was the airplane metaphor.

“We're ready to start the boarding process,” Mr. Chilton said in a speech before an energy trading conference in Houston, according to a printed version of his remarks. “Yeah, it's a process - you must acquiesce to the process, no less. Any uniformed member of the military or anyone needing a little extra time, that's fine, you may board now.”

“Boarding,” he continued. “This is your cattle call…moo. Whew!”

After quoting Pink Floyd (“Can't keep my eyes from th e circling skies/Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earthbound misfit, I.”) , Mr. Chilton explained what was going on:

“The message in the metaphor is that we really are boarding, implementing that is, and ready for regulatory takeoff of Dodd-Frank,” he said. “We've been waiting around the gate area, eating Cinnabons and watching cable news since July of 2010.”

He was discussing the commission's progress in developing rules that would affect how Wall Street can use derivatives. A flurry of comments from the industry, as well as legal challenges, have slowed down the process of implementing Dodd-Frank, which was enacted in 2010.

The initial deadline for writing the rules came and went in July 2011. Since then, the rule-making process has been the subject of Congressional hearings and countless sober-minded discussions.

But for Mr. Chilton, it presents an opportunity for levity.

Enter the second metaphor. Football.

“It's been a lon g drive down the field,” Mr. Chilton said in a statement posted to the agency's Web site on Thursday. “We have finalized roughly two-thirds of the 60 rules we were charged with promulgating under the financial reform law. It's taken longer than some of us hoped at the kickoff, but now the goal line is in sight.”

He milked the comparison for all it was worth:

“Despite what some have argued, we have a game plan. Like in sports, game plans don't always go as planned, but you go forward and do the best you can to be successful.”

Mr. Chilton, who joined the commission in 2007, often injects his special brand of commentary into weighty matters. When his own words won't do the trick, he quotes from rock ‘n' roll.

Last year, he quoted the Beatles, referring to the investigation into the collapsed brokerage firm MF Global as a “magical mystery tour.”

He then shifted to another English band: “In this case, as the Stones sing, we ‘got n o satisfaction.'”

Mr. Chilton's musical tastes tend toward the classics. He invoked Tom Petty‘s “The Waiting” last year. But he draws from country music as well, quoting Glen Campbell's “Rhinestone Cowboy” in May.

On Thursday, he was in rare form.

“On days like today,” Mr. Chilton said in the speech in Houston, “it is a delight to be a financial regulator.”