This week Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will try to close out her “summer energy agenda” with a bill claiming to end “excessive” speculation in oil markets. Instead of allowing the House to vote on any bill that would actually increase our supply of oil (like bills that would end bans on exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the Outer Continental Shelf), Pelosi claims she can lower gas prices tightening government control of oil futures markets. But as Heritage analyst senior policy analyst Dr. David Kreutzer shows, there is …
Faced with mounting public consensus for more domestic energy production, liberals in Congress are desperate to pass anything that they can claim will lower energy prices (well they will pass anything as long as it doesn’t include actually producing more energy). Yesterday Senate Democrats passed a bill to stop “excessive, relentless speculation” in oil. Liberals claim their plan will reduce oil prices by 20 to 50 percent. Also yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve, and five other federal agencies released a joint report concluding there was no …
Why is the price of oil a difficult concept for some on the left? They want to come up with some grand conspiracy theory and rush to command-and-control legislation claiming that Americans have a “right to lower gas prices.” This is at best silly but at worst dangerous. This mentality hinders future economic growth by giving people a victim mentality and stifles the entrepreneurial spirit by making it seem as though government is the only one who can solve the problem. Congress is now fixated on speculators. If Congress wants …
