Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, today issued the following statement on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s record fine of Barclays Bank for manipulating the Western power market from 2006 to 2008.

“Today the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stood up for California’s consumers and ratepayers, using authorities I fought for in 2005.

“This record fine—$453 million and the surrender of $34.9 million in profit—results from FERC catching Barclays manipulating our power markets for more than two years. This is a strong example of what happens when a federal market oversight agency builds the technical capacity to truly understand how traders exploit power markets.

“I hope our other energy market regulators –notably CFTC and FTC—soon bring this level of vigilance and oversight to our energy futures and wholesale oil markets to protect consumers from market manipulation.”

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