A U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday approved Timothy Massad as the next chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but a second nominee to the derivatives watchdog hit a snag. Massad, a lawyer who oversaw the U.S. government's $700 billion bank bailout program, was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Gary Gensler. He has spent most of his career at Wall Street law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, working on a wide variety of corporate transaction. He and two other nominees met little resistance at an earlier confirmation hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC. The agency was initially an overseer of agricultural and other futures. But, following the vote, Republican Senator David Vitter from Louisiana, who does not sit on the committee, blocked Sharon Bowen, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins in New York, through a procedure that can delay her confirmation as a commissioner. Bowen was also the only nominee to draw a "no" vote
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