“Some good news in the effort to improve oversight of energy markets: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced that it would limit speculation for the electronic trading of U.S. energy commodities -- like crude oil -- on foreign exchanges, and require recording-keeping and an audit trail.

Today’s move by CFTC is a welcome step. This is the latest in a series of moves by the CFTC to address growing concerns about the impact of speculation, which some experts believe could be driving up energy prices.

In fact, CFTC found that traders were using the London exchange to trade U.S. crude oil futures to evade regulation – and that these trades exceeded U.S. speculation limits every single week since 2006.

I urge my colleagues to immediately pass legislation that Senator Levin and I have introduced that would codify these regulations and strengthen CFTC’s oversight authority.  We’ve got to close the ‘London Loophole’ for all time.”

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