On Sunday, California's senior senator charged that California's record gasoline prices may be the "results of an illegal short squeeze'' engineered by the handful of companies that refine gas here.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, cited news reports that said Tesoro Corporation -- whose refinery in the South Bay went down for maintenance -- was taken advantage of by other gas suppliers "either through collusion or the use of market power.''
"Publicly-available data appears to confirm that market fundamentals are not to blame for rising gas prices in California,'' the California democrat wrote in a letter to FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz.
Feinstein also called on the FTC to monitor energy price and production data gathered by other government agencies, to watch for "fraud, manipulation or other malicious trading practices.''
She also urged the FTC to establish a permanent gas and oil oversight market committee, similar to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's oversight of the natural gas and electricity markets.
Feinstein said "California consumers are all-too-familiar with energy price spikes which cannot be explained by market fundamentals, and which turn out years later to have been the result of malicious and manipulative trading activity.
She reminded the FTC of past frauds, like the 2000-2001 electrical crisis, which turned out to have been caused by market manipulation by Enronand other traders. That fraud cost the state an estimated $40 billion, caused rolling blackouts, and is cited by some historians as having cost Gov. Gray Davis his political career.
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS
Does the spike in gas prices seem like part of the normal market fluctuation, or do you think California consumers are being fleeced?
The Democrats voted in mass against the Civil Rights act and the KKK was a branch of the Democrat Party Sen Robert Byrd was a grand Dragon of the KKK. Todays Democrat party is a wing of the Communist Party that is why they showed Soviet Era battleships at the convention in North Carolina. The first grand wizard of the KKK was honored at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, no Democrats voted for the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to former slaves and, to this day, the party website ignores those decades of racism, Three years after Appomattox, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting blacks citizenship in the United States, came before Congress: 94 percent of Republicans endorsed it. The records of Congress reveal that not one Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for the 14th Amendment.Three years after the Civil War, and the Democrats from the North as well as the South were still refusing to recognize any rights of citizenship for black Americans. South Carolina Gov. Wade Hampton at the 1868 Democratic National Convention inserted a clause in the party platform declaring the Congress' civil rights laws were "unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." It was the same convention when Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the KKK, was honored for his leadership.
We wanted to get the word out for everyone to check their bank accounts. I was shocked yesterday to see in our bank statement that $950.00 was taken from our Clinton Youth Baseball account and given to Obama for America. Peoplesmart.com is somehow connected because they withdrew money and then re-deposited it the same day. We have filed a complaint with the Missouri Attorney General but are concerned for others as some may not check their accounts regularly. If it can happen to our Youth Baseball it can happen to anyone. Thanks! Cindy Wirsig