Chris Van Hollen: “I thank my colleague and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Peterson, for his leadership on this, along with…”

“I thank my colleague and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Peterson, for his leadership on this, along with our colleagues Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Stupak, Mr. Etheridge, Mr. Larson, and many others who have moved quickly to address the problems of rampant speculation in the energy futures market. The title of this legislation is the Energy Markets Emergency Act, and what it does is direct the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, to invoke its emergency powers to crack down on extreme speculation in the futures market. We all know that families across this country are facing emergencies in their family budgets, and it's time that the CFTC stepped forward and treated this like the emergency that it is. Part of the rise in prices is of course due to supply and demand and the fact that China and India are boosting a demand. That's part of it. But the other part of it is in fact an increase in speculation, extreme speculation.”