WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) criticized House Republicans and the Bush Administration for working to defeat energy speculation legislation considered Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.  H.R. 6604, the Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008, fell short of the two-thirds majority required for passage in a 276 to 151 vote.  The bill fell short of the required votes when 16 Republicans switched their votes from yes to no, including Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan.  Stupak voted in support of the legislation, which he has been working to help craft since June.

“Excessive energy speculation has inflated energy prices far beyond underlying supply and demand fundamentals,” Stupak said.  “We have heard the testimony.  We have seen the numbers.  And we had the chance to take action to begin reigning in this excessive speculation.  But, once again, too many of my Republican colleagues sided with the oil men in the White House to defeat legislation that would bring transparency to the market and relief to consumers.”

Stupak, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, has been investigating excessive speculation in the energy markets for three years and was the first to introduce comprehensive legislation to close the loopholes that have allowed speculators to artificially inflate energy prices.

“For three years I have conducted an in-depth investigation into the excessive speculation that is driving unprecedented increases in energy costs,” Stupak said.  “This bill pulled key provisions from my proposal.  The bill doesn’t do everything that needs to be done to eliminate excessive speculation, but it is a critical first step.”

H.R. 6604 would:

·        Require offshore markets trading in the U.S. follow the same rules as U.S. exchanges.

·        Require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to set position limits on the size of the stake that each speculative investor can hold in a given market

·        Provide the CFTC new oversight and enforcement authority over the $9 trillion unchecked over-the-counter trading market. 

·        Reform the process for granting hedge exemptions from trading limits in order to shut down a loophole that has allowed institutional investors to take, through a series of trades, larger positions than they would be able to take if they traded on the exchanges directly. 

·        Require the CFTC to obtain a complete picture of the swaps markets by defining and classifying index traders and swap dealers, and subjecting them to strict reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

·        Require CFTC to disaggregate and publicly provide data to examine the true extent of index fund and other passive fund participation in futures markets for energy and agricultural products.

·        Call for a minimum of 100 full-time CFTC employees to strengthen enforcement, to prevent manipulation and to prosecute fraud. Despite record trading volume in the futures markets, increasing 8000 percent, CFTC staffing is at its lowest level since the agency was created in 1974.

·        Establish an independent office for the CFTC Inspector General.

“This bill is a reasonable compromise that passed the House Agriculture Committee in a unanimous, bipartisan voice vote last week,” Stupak continued.  “Yet, most House Republicans sided with their party leadership and President Bush, rather than their constituents, in voting to defeat this legislation.”

Stupak first introduced legislation to reign in excessive speculation in April 2006.  As chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, he has held two hearings in the past eight months on excessive energy speculation and just last month introduced H.R. 6330, a more comprehensive version of his Prevent Unfair Manipulation of Prices (PUMP) Act.  He worked with House leadership in crafting legislation passed by the House in June directing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to use its existing authority to investigate and limit excessive energy speculation.