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Posted on 07/22/2008 1:33:55 PM PDT by 300magnum
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic-backed bill to rein in energy market speculators blamed for high crude oil and gasoline prices cleared a U.S. Senate procedural hurdle on Tuesday, but final passage of the legislation remained uncertain.
Supporters mustered far more than the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to proceed with the measure, with 94 senators voting "yes" and none against.
Yet Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West.
The Senate legislation would require institutional traders to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission more details on unregulated over-the-counter transactions to determine if price manipulation or excessive speculation is occurring.
The CFTC also would review the trading practices of swaps dealers and commodity index funds.
The legislation would not require the higher margins to buy and sell oil that the futures industry had feared. But the bill requires tough position limits on speculators to restrict the number of oil contracts they could control.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the legislation was a good first step toward bringing down fuel costs.
"If we did nothing else but pass this speculation bill, the American people would be very, very happy and the markets would be struck quickly and the price of oil would go down," he said.
But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the speculation-only bill was "a very little piece" of the solution to the country's energy problems.
"Americans will continue to demand a serious solution that gets at supply and demand; nothing less than that can be seen as a solution."
The White House on Tuesday expressed disappointment with the Senate bill, because it does not increase domestic oil production.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I can’t begin to tell you all what a monumentally stupid idea this is.
This sets a horrible precedent. Wait until people start to sue because their 401Ks are losing money.
what stops speculators from speculating in London,Paris,Dubai or where ever?
will Congress stop them too?
Aaaaaaaaand as the speculators are losing their shirt the brave and couragous Republicans dropped to their knees once more for their superiors. Throw them out!
Sounds like they might be finally ironing out the loophole whereby investment banks could masquerade as "commercials". This is the sort of thing SAJ is so knowledgeable on, so pinged.
Badly needed. This time, oil barrels full of Congress-critters and dumped in the Potomac.
Oh come on; everyone on FR knows the speculators are to blame for high oil prices.
At this point I have no confidence at all that our “leaders” will do anything effective or even sane to put an energy policy in place. That there is not an outcry of utter rage over how the leftists are deliberately putting the nation at grave (and obvious) risk is mind-boggling. We live in not just interesting but insane times. The electorate is likely to reward those doing the most damage to the nation with larger majorities and control of the executive branch come November.
I just call McConnels office...202 225 3121 and told the cowards off...again.
Yeppers, that’ll do it. Free gas for everyone!
Actually I don’t think legislation like this will cause prices to fall in any substantial way. Maybe there will be a small sell off as traders get in line with the new rules, but then it’s right back to current levels, or probably higher unless we increase supply.
Any Republican who votes for this is too stupid to be in office.
It increases regulation of the market, but that isn't going to drive down prices.
Speculation causes short term highs and lows. Oil is reaching these high prices because it is becoming more and more obvious that as supply increases slower than demand, our government will do all it can to stop us from increasing domestic oil supply.
At the same time, much of the rest of the world is taking steps that will significantly increase taxes on oil production raising production costs among our more reliable trading partners.
The democrats in congress have absolutely no intention of taking steps that will actually increase production and reduce the real market pressures driving up the cost of oil. None.
They will make either pointless laws that do nothing, or use the high price of oil to justify grabbing more regulatory power and increasing taxes. Some are determined to do nothing but make a show of trying to address the problem, others are actively working to make matters worse.
However it should be glaringly obvious to anyone with half a brain that they have no intention of undoing the things they have done to cause this problem in the first place.
They did those things intentionally. They have actively worked to drive up the price of oil over the years to appease the environmental lobby. This was not some accidental happening. Most of the democrats are on the record at some point or another saying as much.
The only way they will back down is if a large number of them start getting tossed out of office.
As long as voters remain stupid enough to believe that this is all the fault of rich oil executives and speculators rather than being primarily the fault of legislators, things are just going to keep getting worse.
Might want to add how many years and counting to it. The DEMONS say it’ll take ten years to get any oil but you have to add one for every year they have prevented it.
As I understand it, US investment banks technically own more than 1.1 billion barrels of crude at a high price on a rolling-forwards basis.
A CFTC reclassification or clarification of the banks as speculators rather than (apparently) as thirsty oil-refineries would force the banks to disgorge 600+ million barrels, dropping the price of crude accordingly.
So Reid is technically correct. Assuming the Bill says what it ought to say, the price of oil would drop.
But President Bush accomplished a $14 drop with a single speech. An enlarged future supply is the real key to a lower price, not slapping the Banks’ pudgy, oil-stained fingers.
I thought the oil companies were to blame. Now the speculators. WHich is it Dems?
depends on the focus group numbers.
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