Runaway oil speculation is costing the airline and trucking industries $39 billion a year in added expenses, according to new data to be released today.
The airline sector alone could save as much as $9.8 billion annually if Wall Street speculation is curbed, Commissioner Bart Chilton of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to announce today.
The trucking industry stands to save even more, as much as $29.1 billion a year, according to Chilton, who will reveal the data in a speech before a group of traders at the Javits Center.
The staggering numbers are the latest salvo in a bitter battle over the impact oil speculators are having on fuel prices, which sailed past $106 a barrel and are creating $4-a-gallon pump prices.
At the center of the feud is the CFTC, which passed new rules in October to limit certain traders — those who don’t take physical delivery of crude or oil supplies — to 25 percent of the deliverable supply per month.
Groups representing Wall Street are suing to quash those rules, saying the CFTC never crunched the numbers to prove their case. They are pressing a federal judge to halt the rules.
“We’re expecting it at any moment,” Ira Hammerman, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s lead lawyer, said of the decision.
Chilton, meanwhile, is seeking to speed the rules, preferably by June, he told The Post. Otherwise, the rules will have to wait for the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission to define the term “swap,” a process that has already been delayed multiple times.
Today, Chilton is expected to tell the traders that the “speculative premium” on oil adds 56 cents to every gallon of gas, which he calls “an enormous drain” on businesses. Chilton has previously said oil speculation costs every consumer up to $757 extra a year.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Commissioner Bart Chilton, oil speculation, oil speculation, CFTC, Wall Street speculation, Chilton, oil speculators, Ira Hammerman, oil supplies
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