Today (6/17), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, John Dingell (D-MI) and Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Bart Stupak (D-MI), sent a letter to the Acting Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Walter Lukken, expressing concern over the lack of transparency to regulators and the public regarding energy futures markets.
The letter questions the increases in crude oil prices from $68/barrel a year ago to nearly $140/barrel today, and inquires as to whether the commodity index investments have caused prices to deviate from economic fundamentals.
"In particular, Congress needs to better understand the role and activities of Sovereign Wealth Funds in commodity markets in order to assess whether or if any of the oil producing nations may be contributing to the upwards pressure on commodity prices through undisclosed investment in energy or other commodities. We were interested to learn that all five commodity dealers represented at the CFTC's June 10, 2008, Energy Markets Advisory Committee meeting (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and D.E. Shaw) had Sovereign Wealth Funds as clients," Dingell and Stupak said in their letter.
The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing on energy speculation in December of last year and is scheduled to hold a second hearing on Monday, June 23rd.