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 ...
Let’s see. Congress in a futile attempt to crush oil speculators next day turns around and bails out housing speculators. Makes sense to me.
The Democrats forced a freeze on SPR. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats passed a farm bill with Ethanol. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats pushed a bill threatening to sue OPEC. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats said “no drilling”. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats held hearings decrying speculators, and pushed regulatory changes about speculation. The oil prices went up.
Democrats pushed for windfall profits on oil companies. Oil prices went up.
Democrats begged Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Oil prices went up.
Democrats passed measure increasing “renewable fuel” investments. Oil prices went up.
The Democrats went on vacation (4th of July). Oil prices went down.
Bush announced the end of the executive ban on drilling. Oil prices plummeted, biggest 2-day drop ever.
Bush administration cleared regulatory hurdles to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Oil prices went down.
A new well was brought online. Oil prices went down.
Administration published new relaxed rules for shale oil. Oil prices went down.
We made it through hurricane season so far; Latest storm didn’t bother gulf — oil prices went down.
So far, it looks like everything the Democrats said would lower prices actually raised prices.
Meanwhile, everything that happened that looked like it would INCREASE SUPPLY caused the oil prices to DROP.
This legislation won’t help much. It might actually hurt, by curtailing fluidity in the market at a time when the market is high, and thus keeping it from dropping as quickly as it should.
But it won’t pass. The headline is misleading — this was no “test vote”. The Republicans decided that they have enough votes for what they want that it will be better to debate the bill and force Reid to block their amendments (or better, to ACCEPT their amendments and actually ACCOMPLISH something). The Republicans won’t vote for the bill as-is (although the core idea of fixing up the reporting requirements for “speculation sales” is a good thing).
Oh no, it is Big Oil and President Bush and Vice President Cheney, two Big Oil executives who have much to gain by the high gas prices.(snicker)/SAR
Congress CAN”T regulate speculators. All they can do is move it offshore.
Scory, you expect too much out of the masses of this nation. You expect them to know enough about what is going on to actually utter rage for it? I get the gambit from “Greedy oil companies” to “The war” to “Bush is making millions”. And the sad thing is, 95% of the people haven’t read a damn thing to actually base an opinion on.
What could do more to put the U.S. in a position that war for oil or
complete economic collapse were our only choices?
I'm not seeing any other result from these policies.
How does this work out for us?
Either the Democrats have a plan or this is all one huge coincidence.
The futures market operators in London must be laughing their socks off. The oil market is an international market. This has to be one of the stupidest things that Congress has ever proposed and it faces stiff competition. It’s a wonderful demonstration of the economic ignorance of our political “leaders”.
Who says oil traders have to trade in America? Stupid ideas like this will move more stock and commodity trading off shore where congress will have NO authority to make laws.
this idea ranks just about as stupid as suing OPEC.
Sure they are and the greenhouse effect is causing global warming. Everybody knows it! /s
Can Congress compete with itself? They did suggest that they would sue OPEC.
Speculators drove the price of oil DOWN $3 today.
The new description of a DemoRat is “BLOCKHEAD”
They BLOCK OIL EXPLORATION.
They BLOCK GAS EXPLORATION.
They BLOCK COAL POWER PLANTS
They BLOCK NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.
They BLOCK “EVERYTHING” THAT PERTAINS TO VIABLE DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION.
They BLOCK OUT RATIONAL THINKING FROM LEADING ECONOMISTS, NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS, AND MAJORITY PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT DOMESTIC ENERGY UTILIZATION.
DemoRats are TRUE BLOCKHEADS”.
And the donks want to take the credit for that.
Behold the mighty 9% congress critters...
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to 5% they go..........
That is so. If Conservatives had some better rhetoricians in Washington, in Congress, the Dems wouldn’t be hogging the camera all the time, talking trash, and getting away with it. Used to be a dialog on the Hill, Senators like Goldwater and Dirkson were always declaiming opposite sides of issues and it was like the good old days of Calhoun and Webster. Top rate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.