As for speculation, other Democrats have echoed Congressman Israel's tweet.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D) of California said last month: Gasoline “supply is going up, demand is going down, and the price is going up. It is very contradictory. So how do you explain that? You explain it by recognizing that Republicans are protecting Wall Street speculators responsible for driving up the pain at the pump.”
While Mr. Kloza points out that the "paper market" for gasoline – that is, investors buying financial products linked to oil and gas – has grown even as the country's physical market has shrunk during the past five years, solving the speculation problem isn’t a near-term solution.
“The genie is out of the bottle," he says. "The idea of regulating [speculation] when participation comes from a multitude of countries, and it's in the electronic space right now is incredibly daunting.”
