The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that calls on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to initiate an investigation of the relationship between oil speculators and the increasing price of oil and gasoline. If the bill passes the Senate, which is by no means a certainty, the CFTC will be authorized to use its emergency powers to launch the investigation. The current head of the little-known federal regulatory agency, Walter Lukken, said that the agency has already formed a task force to look at the issue, which will report back to the Commission on September 15th. But Congress wants the agency to take quicker action.

Republicans have been putting increasing pressure on the House leadership to do something about increasing gas prices. Republicans are pushing legislation that would increase exploration for oil and natural gas in the United States as a means of increasing supply. Democrats generally favor energy alternatives, claiming that new oil production in the U.S. will not have an impact on the market in the near term. But the same can be said for alternative energy sources, for which a viable delivery and distribution infrastructure does not yet exist. Still, Democratic leaders see the price of oil as less a function of market dynamics and more as a conspiracy among wealthy and disconnected oil companies and traders. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that the CFTC was similarly out of touch with, "the economic pain that the American people are feeling."

"The fact that the CFTC has refused to recognize that there is any speculative component at all to the rise in oil prices despite what we believe is overwhelming testimony to the contrary indicates that they need this push."

The bill will face an uphill battle in the Senate, where it could be subject to a Republican filibuster. But given that all the previous investigations of alleged price gouging and collusion among gasoline distributors and oil companies have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing, Republicans may decide to allow the measure to go through as a means of building more of a case for their position that the price of oil is being driven by a supply shortage. Whatever action the Senate takes, however, the measure does nothing to produce a single drop, let alone a barrel, of oil. As such it will certainly have no impact on prices, just as all the previous investigations have not helped drop the price of a gallon of gas.