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S. 3268, The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008
- This item is from the 110th Congress (2007-2008) and is no longer current. Comments, voting, and wiki editing have been disabled, and the cost/savings estimate has been frozen.
Original version created by webmaster
S. 3268 would amend the Commodity Exchange Act, to prevent excessive price speculation with respect to energy commodities.
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Points Against
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Visitor Comments 
Bryan Morton
July 18, 2008, 2:41pm (report abuse)Speculation helps moderate supply and demand. Speculators, hoping for higher prices at a later date purchase present supplies. This increases the current price and slows current consumption. Later, if the speculator is correct, this prevents shortages and even higher prices. If the speculator is wrong, he loses big bucks and the future price will decline.
Thomas
July 19, 2008, 8:48am (report abuse)This bill is not against all speculation, just the speculation that has no intention of using the product. The speculators having no interest in using the product are ripping everyone off by abusing loopholes in the system. If this bill does what they say, it should restrict speculation and hedging to the ones with a true physical interest in the product. The public should see immediate results. Check out www.stopoilspeculationnow.com for more info.
Karl
July 21, 2008, 11:07am (report abuse)We're slipping down the slope to socialism and total government control. Soon we'll be in line to receive our 'ration' of oil. Let the free market 'free'. That is what has made this a great nation.
LS
July 21, 2008, 12:09pm (report abuse)What we need is greater transparency into the true supply/demand that is driving the speculation. Right now, it appears the speculation is not just based on real numbers.
ChuckL
July 21, 2008, 1:27pm (report abuse)The problem was created by congress with the limitations on production in collusion with the environmental extremists.
Until the artificial causes are removed, we need some artificial means to stop the problem.
James
July 21, 2008, 2:28pm (report abuse)The cause is deregulation since 2000 & lack of oversight. The data is mostly public people, check their site & docs...then check the public sources. The speculators have 71% of the oil market now up from 37% in 2000. The futures are trading at a ratio of 13.8x world demand up 500% from the 2.7x value in 1997:
http://www.eguyana.net/Eddiebauer/blog/62/
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com./uploads/Paper_Chase.pdf
World Supply vs. Demand in balance & demand increasing linearly.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t21.xls
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t46.xls
No supply problem either, but I'm out of space.
Senate knew in June of 2006:
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=257862
Tell your reps to support Bill S. 3268 or let a small group damage or destroy the world!
Carol
July 21, 2008, 5:10pm (report abuse)Free trade is one thing "excessive price speculation" ( as stated in S.3268) is another.
perkinsdl
July 25, 2008, 11:12pm (report abuse)Recent testimony of oil company executives before Congress showed oil should be $55 per barrel based on the rules of supply and demand. But the price is being bid up to unrealistic highs by unregulated speculators and investors.
Carl
July 28, 2008, 10:36am (report abuse)The commodity futures markets were established to insure continuity of supply and stability of price. Hedgeing by markey makers does just that. Currently a high percentage of contracts are held and bid upon by investment banks and speculators not in the business of physically dealing with a specific commodity.
S. 3268 would be a positive step to close loopholes and introduce proper oversite. Urge your Congressman to support this bill.
Martin
July 28, 2008, 7:02pm (report abuse)Don't give me quotes, don't show me statistics, don't show me trends, explain exactly WHY speculation is causing the price of oil to be artificially high. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation on why speculation is to blame and I doubt I ever will. If you don't understand it either then don't buy into it. This demonization of speculators is about as bad as the demonization of the oil companies, the Iranians and the mortgage lenders.
Carol in California
July 30, 2008, 3:57pm (report abuse)We need more energy now. Wake up people, we are being scammed by politicians and foreign interests who benefit from our paralysis. Congress must enable nuclear power and natural gas production to coordinate the wind and solar sources as they develop and grow.
Steve in Dallas
July 30, 2008, 11:46pm (report abuse)This bill assumes that capital can only play on the traditional US dollar denominated commodities markets (NYMEX and the ICE.)
Basically this bill assumes that if we shut down the speculation game in New York and London that will be the end of the game. It STUPIDLY ignores the new (Euro denominated) oil bourses in the UAE, Russia, japan, Iran and China. If we try to shut this game down it will collapse the US dollar FOREVER as capital flees the American market in search of greener pastures. This may be the only time I have ever agreed with the Bush Admin but I must agree that this is a very very stupid bill, unless you actually want to crush the America economy forever.
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From the Blog
The Debate on Oil Speculation
This coming week, the Senate is scheduled to debate S. 3268, The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008. It’s intended to prevent excessive price speculation in energy commodities like oil and natural gas, hoping that this would bring pri...A Consumer Group You’ve Never Heard Of
A staple of modern lobbying is the self-identified consumer group. Claiming to represent the interests of consumers, these groups send letters to Congress and issue press releases to create the appearance that a large cross-section of people actually ...To Drill or Not to Drill
I wrote about the campaigning on S. 3268, the Stop Energy Speculation Act of 2008, here a few days ago. The debate has taken a new twist as Republicans have pushed to expand domestic oil production as the preferred way of controlling energy prices. ...The Airline Oil Spin
A little over a month ago, I wrote here about the debate on oil speculation. One of the commenters on S. 3268, The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008 had pointed to a Web site called Stop Oil Speculation Now. I speculated (ahem) that this c...