The Commodity Futures Trading Commission took steps to ease post-crisis restrictions on government-owned electric companies and other utilities amid complaints new rules would make it harder to hedge against shifts in energy prices and other business risks.

The CFTC on Wednesday voted, 4-0, to ensure financial firms that enter into significant amounts of swaps with public utilities can escape requirements that they register with the CFTC as swaps "dealers." Such registration carries costs, which the utilities said would be passed along to them. Swaps allow traders to make bets or hedge risks and have come in for stricter oversight given the central role they played in the financial crisis.