Bush Urged To Have Energy Price-Fixing Task Force.

In a letter to President Bush and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Sen Maria Cantwell and Representative Jay Inslee, both Washington Democrats, said the US Justice Department should start a task force to investigate oil and natural gas price manipulation. The task force would seek out oil- and gas-market fraud and corporate corruption, and co-ordinate enforcement among federal agencies.

In an e-mailed statement, Cantwell said: "With record gas[oline] prices dragging our economy into a recession and $117 per barrel of [WTI paper crude] oil that can't be explained by historic market forces, a new Enron-style task force should be created to examine abnormalities in the oil and gas markets". Cantwell wanted the Federal Trade Commission to say how it will proceed with a rule to stop price manipulation. She said unmonitored trading practices which drove up western US electricity prices in 2000 and 2001 during the Enron scandal could be happening in oil markets because of a lack of transparency into private exchanges.