Sen. Bernie Sanders is criticizing federal regulators for what he’s calling inaction in the face of mounting evidence that speculation is driving up the price of oil and gasoline.
Sanders joined Senate colleagues Thursday in grilling Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the commission’s failure to quickly impose limits on oil price speculation on Wall Street.
Sanders says the supply of crude oil is higher than it was two years ago, when the national average price for gasoline at the pump was $2.30 per gallon.
He says Wall Street reform legislation required the CFTC to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that Wall Street speculators could trade in the energy futures market no later than January 17th of this year, and wants to know why this hasn’t happened yet.