On the recordJune 14, 2011
Having heard the subcommittee chairman's discussion of this amendment, I now understand why he didn't want to have a discussion of this amendment. He wanted simply to accept it so he would not have had to say nothing. Since it was not accepted, he did say nothing, he just took 5 minutes to say it. I take it back, he did say one very important thing, and it defines this issue. He apparently believes that speculation in oil is no part of the reason that oil prices go high, and he quoted a Democrat. He found a Democrat, one of the three Democratic members of the commission. The other two, of course, vehemently disagree. By the way, we did not say that this is something Goldman Sachs doesn't like. Goldman Sachs is on the gentleman's side. Goldman Sachs opposes regulation of derivatives. Goldman Sachs merely mentioned in an analyst report that they believe that $20 a barrel of the cost of oil comes from the speculation that they engage in. Maybe they were bragging. They certainly weren't objecting. Here is what speculation means. By the way, in our legislation that the Republicans are trying to undo and in what the CFTC is trying to do, people who use oil are not regulated. An airline trying to hedge against volatility in prices, they are left alone. Here is what we want to say.…
