The Energy Markets Anti-Manipulation and Integrity Restoration Act

- Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, it is with a sense of urgency and purpose that I am
introducing the Energy Markets Anti-Manipulation and Integrity Restoration Act today.

- With high fuel prices squeezing our constituents and burdening our economy, we in Congress
have a responsibility to act. While individual Members of Congress clearly disagree over
whether we will ever really be able to drill our way out of this challenge--or whether next
generation alternatives and improved energy efficiency offer the most promising way forward,
there is one principle on which we should all agree: Our energy markets should serve the
legitimate needs of energy consumers and producers--not enrich a narrow group of ``hot
money'' speculators at the public's expense. With hedge fund and institutional interest in
commodities exploding nearly twenty-fold over the past 5 years, and the price of oil recently
spiking over $11 in a single day, it is clear that today's energy prices reflect something more
than the fundamental laws of supply and demand.

- The Energy Markets Anti-Manipulation and Integrity Restoration Act would once and for all
close the so-called Enron loophole by adding energy to the list of commodities that cannot be
traded on deregulated, exempt commercial markets. Additionally, this focused legislation
would close the Foreign Board of Trade (FBOT) loophole currently enabling unregulated
energy futures trading on American soil by forbidding an exchange from being deemed an
unregulated foreign entity if its trading affiliate or trading infrastructure is in the U.S., and it
trades a U.S.-delivered energy contract that significantly affects price discovery in the
markets. If enacted into law, these two common-sense steps would go a long way towards
eliminating market manipulation and excessive speculation currently distorting today's
energy marketplace.

- I am especially pleased to be offering this timely legislation today with my colleagues
Representatives Rosa DeLauro, Betty Sutton, Robert Wexler, Adam Schiff, Xavier Becerra,
Peter Welch, Brian Higgins, Bill Delahunt and Raul Grijalva--and I look forward to working with
them and the rest of the House to address this important issue on behalf our constituents in
very short order.

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