Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today strongly backed several provisions of a bill Senate Democrats introduced to address high gasoline prices.

Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, supports a plan, first proposed and championed by Senate Democrats, to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) so that more gasoline can be put on the market. The SPR, which stores an emergency reserve of petroleum is 97 percent filled.

“The Department of Energy agrees that removing oil from the market to fill the SPR contributes to oil price increases. At $120 a barrel, it simply makes no sense to be sticking oil underground,” Bingaman said.

Bingaman also backs a separate proposal that would help protect consumers from price gouging at the pump. It would do so by giving the president the authority to declare an energy emergency, at which time civil penalties would apply to those charging “unconscionably excessive prices.”

Finally, Bingaman believes oil markets need to be more transparent so that speculation does not drive up prices. Right now, it’s possible for hedge funds or traders to evade protections put in place for trading oil in the United States by trading oil in foreign markets. Bingaman is pressing for passage of a plan that would require the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to closely monitor oil trading happening in foreign markets to ensure there is no market manipulation.

“Instead of looking the other way when it comes to problems associated with off-shore oil trading, regulators should be protecting American consumers,” Bingaman said. 

Bingaman said he hopes the bill introduced today by Majority Leader Harry Reid is the beginning of a debate aimed at helping families that are getting squeezed by high energy prices.

“Record-setting gas prices are making it harder for working New Mexico families and business owners to make ends meet. Enacting these proposals would help provide some relief in the near term,” Bingaman said.