AUGUSTA – Mainers are paying more for their fuel because of unregulated speculation in the energy market, said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. She and the rest of the state congressional delegation are pushing for immediate action to regulate all energy markets.

“We cannot dither,” she said. “People are suffering adversely in an abundance of circumstances including the truck drivers that are facing these astronomical price increases.”

Snowe said a study done for Congress estimates that the unregulated energy market has added $25 to the cost of a barrel of crude oil. She said that is reflected in higher prices for gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, natural gas and propane.

Snowe was successful last December in getting her proposal to regulate the energy trading market adopted in the Senate as part of the Farm Bill. It is not in the House version of the bill, and the conference committee between the House and Senate has yet to reach agreement.

“We need to run the bill on its own and get it into law now,” Snowe said. “That will help rein in the rampant speculation that is driving up prices at the pump.”

First District U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said there is broad support in the House for extending the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the now unregulated trades. He is co-sponsor in the House of legislation similar to the Snowe bill.

“Under HR 4066, these under-the-counter speculators would have to abide by the same rules that already govern on-market traders,” Allen said. “It would provide transparency and oversight the CFTC needs to monitor these deals properly and prevent greedy speculators from manipulating the market to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers.”

Both Allen’s and Snowe’s measures would increase oversight of electronic over-the-counter trading of energy commodities, including oil, natural gas, coal and electricity.

Snowe said the legislation is really an attempt to undo language Enron and other large energy traders convinced lawmakers to add to the conference report on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

Before 2000, U.S. energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated markets such as the New York Mercantile Exchange. Since then, most trading has moved to unregulated electronic markets.

“Unfortunately, there is a lack of publicly available data to track the effect of speculation on market prices, and manipulation can go undetected on certain unregulated markets,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “That is why I support expanding the authority of the federal government to provide greater regulation and transparency to guard against manipulation.”

Collins supports Snowe’s effort to get a separate vote on the regulation measure in the Senate and is a co-sponsor of the original measure. She said hearings have indicated the unregulated trading is one part of the reason energy prices have increased. She said other reasons are increased global demand for crude oil, instability in the Middle East and Venezuela, supply decisions of the OPEC cartel, insufficient U.S. refining capacity, and the declining value of the dollar.

The legislation is modeled on the requirements that apply to traders that do business on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It would require U.S. energy traders who electronically trade futures in the U.S. to keep records and report large holdings carried by their market participants in energy commodities for five years or longer.

The bill defines energy commodities to include: coal, crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, electricity, propane and natural gas.

Like traders of other commodities on the NYMEX, traders would have to provide records of their transactions to the CFTC or the Department of Justice on request.

The legislation also seeks to get a handle on the impact of foreign trading markets by requiring persons in the United States, who trade U.S. energy commodities delivered in the U.S. on foreign futures exchanges, to keep similar records and report large trades.

Second District U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, also supports the legislation and hopes it will be passed swiftly by both the House and Senate

“I strongly support action to rein in abuses by energy speculators by making sure that all energy traders play by the same rules,” he said. “In the House, I have pushed for adoption of HR 594, the Prevent Unfair Manipulation of Prices Act, which gives the Commodities Futures Trading Commission the power to impose penalties for price manipulation in the energy futures market.”

Snowe said regulating the energy futures market is one way to have an immediate impact on the price of everything from gasoline and diesel fuel to natural gas and propane.

“Increasing oversight will instill confidence in the market, help eliminate unnecessary crude oil price inflation and give American families a break at the pump,” Allen said.