DailyViews: Editorial

FTC driving in slow lane

It’s taken a while, but some action may be finally be in the wings to prevent manipulation in the oil-trading markets.

With consumers looking at prices at the pump nearing $3.60 a gallon for regular self-service gasoline, it’s about time somebody stepped up and started examining to see if deceptive practices are being used to inflate oil prices.

Oil futures had skyrocketed to $120 a barrel before they dropped to $112 on Thursday, still an obscene level.

It’s a given that Americans won’t ever again see the relatively cheap fuel and food prices that were around before Hurricane Katrina. But the federal government has to perform its fiduciary duty of ensuring that wherever food and fuel prices do go, they don’t get there because somebody is manipulating data to make a quick 10 million or so bucks.

In a broad energy bill passed last December, giving false information to a federal agency about oil prices became illegal and those who do it risk $1 million in fines. The same legislation empowered the Federal Trade Commission to pursue price manipulation in the oil markets.

The oil markets and high pump prices are on everyone’s mind these days. Presidential candidates and other politicians running for election don’t have a shortage of solutions. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, who’s trying to upset Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nod, both want to suspend federal fuel taxes for summer (and probably right up to the election, if the truth be told). Obama and Clinton also want to tax the big oil companies that are seeing windfall profits. President Bush, however, wants to drill some oil wells in the Alaskan wilderness. And there are calls to take oil from the American strategic reserve and put it into the market.

It’s hard to recall a problem that has ever drawn a murkier hodgepodge of fast fixes. But, that’s politics. After all, an elected official only survives ’til the next vote by knowing what’s on people’s minds and quickly offering a solution, even it means addressing a complex issue with a simple solution that won’t work.

No one understands the dangers of politicians making up policy on the campaign trail than the bureaucrats who actually run the nation. Given the importance of this issue to every American who pours a gallon of gas into an auto or even a lawn mower, you’d think the FTC would have jumped all over its expanded authority. Not so. Commission officials announced Thursday, a good four months after the bill was passed, that now they’re ready to take public suggestions toward developing a regulation on oil industry price manipulation. After that 30-day comment period, FTC officials hope to assess matters “quickly and thoughtfully,” figure out exactly what “deceptive” and “manipulative” actually mean, and conclude their rule-making business by, oh, maybe the end of the year.

This means that its going to be a full year before the FTC starts trying to ensure that oil traders are honest.

Maybe it just takes that long to get something done in America’s bureaucratic mechanism.

Meanwhile, as you watch more and more of your hard-earned dollars flow through a hose into your gas tank, at least you can take some comfort in knowing that somebody will be watching your wallet ... eventually.

The Albany Herald Editorial Board

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THE ALBANY HERALD Founded by H.M. McIntosh, 1891 126 N. Washington St., P.O. Box 48, Albany, Ga. 31702 Michael J. Gebhart, Publisher Jim Hendricks, Editor Danny Carter, Managing Editor Michael Hill, Circulation Director Tami Abbott, Advertising Director Lynn Ridder, Operations Director Cheryl Frakes, Business Office Manager