Here’s a petition from our ally Public Citizen, calling on federal regulators to quit stalling and rein in the financial speculators who are jacking up gasoline prices. It’s well worth the few seconds to click on the link and sign the petition. Fight back against Goldman Sachs and the other big banks whose speculation costs you at the pump!

The speculators are counting on the public not understanding or caring about commodities regulation. Prove them wrong.

Here’s OilWatchdog’s earlier post on the damage the speculators are doing. And here’s the text of the e-mail message sent by Tyson Slocum at Public Citizen, explaining the technical point at issue:

Did you know that for every gallon of gas you buy, 65 to 70 cents goes right into the pockets of Wall Street traders?

Speculation on Wall Street, while currently legal, artificially inflates the price purely to make traders richer. It has nothing to do with how much it costs to find, refine or distribute oil. It’s just the manipulation of markets for the sake of greed.

American consumers end up paying millions and millions more for fuel. And the distorted profits contribute to perpetuating our addiction to oil.

You can do something about it.

The 2010 Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act gave the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the authority to limit speculation.

But the CFTC has not only failed to act so far, but just postponed a vote on a rule intended to crack down on oil speculation scheduled for September 22 after a huge lobbying campaign by Wall Street.

Sign a petition urging CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler to limit practices that give Wall Street speculators huge profits while driving up our energy costs.

We WILL get Chairman Gensler’s attention. Even with a problem as serious as this, he’s not expecting activists to weigh in on what he considers a technical aspect of the Wall Street reform legislation.

The reform would place restrictions (a.k.a. “position limits”) on how big a chunk of the oil market a single trader, like Goldman Sachs, can control. More effective competition is created by limiting the size of such positions.

Of course, the larger a share of the market a bank controls, the more opportunities it has to control prices and make bigger profits. So the banks have been fighting back at the CFTC, trying to get the agency to back down. It’s your job to show the collective voice of the people is bigger than the money and lobbying of just a couple of banks.

Sign the petition today and we’ll deliver your signature to Chairman Gensler before the vote (which is now scheduled for next month).

The CFTC has the power to stand up for consumers and end Wall Street domination of energy markets. It’s time for them to exercise that power.