It’s time to close the so-called “Enron Loophole.”

As we’ve all seen on the news recently, out of control energy speculation on stock markets is one reason that oil and gas prices are so high. The impact is crippling our entire economy and hurting middle-class families.

In 2000, the Enron Loophole became law when Enron lobbyists were able to get Phil Gramm, then-Senator from Texas and John McCain’s chief economic advisor, to slip it into a piece of legislation in the dead of night. The Enron loophole prevented the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from overseeing certain kinds of energy futures trading, and many experts believe that the loophole helped create the energy crisis in California because it allowed companies like Enron to manipulate prices in trading markets that the CFTC could not regulate. My opponent, Chris Smith voted for this legislation.

The recent farm bill, which Chris Smith voted against, helped curb some of the problems created by the Enron loophole, but there is much more that needs to be done. In order to fully close the Enron loophole, we need to make sure that the trading of energy futures is governed by rules that have some teeth. We need strict criminal penalties for breaking the law and constant oversight to ensure rules are not being broken. We should also make sure than US energy futures cannot be traded in overseas markets where anti-speculation rules do not exist or are not enforced. I also support the thorough investigation of the oil markets by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.

Speculation isn’t the only reason gas is $4 a gallon. We all know that. We need to use energy more efficiently and give our citizens real incentives to do so. We need to encourage private industry to develop alternative sources of energy, and give them incentives to do so. We also need to help people who are hurting right now because of the skyrocketing cost of gas and its effects on the cost of other basic necessities. But speculation is a piece of the puzzle, and it is one piece we can do something about right now.