TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline permit hangs in the balance, up for a potential Senate vote this week, having already passed the House as part of the Transportation Bill last week. Other companies, meanwhile, are wasting no time pushing their own respective tar sands pipeline proposals while that drama unfolds.

The President held his event in Cushing, Oklahoma this morning announcing an expedited review of the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will move oil from Cushing to refineries at Port Arthur, Texas (in all likelihood raising gas prices in parts of the Midwest). And as Oklahomans listened and Native American protesters demonstrated in an actual cage, the President bragged about things that I would argue should not be the stuff of bragging.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimate that Wall Street speculation is now the second-largest contributor to oil prices, accounting for 15% of the increase in oil prices over the last decade – correlating strongly with the expansion of commodity trading and speculation in oil futures. This makes speculation perhaps the most fertile ground for actually reducing gas prices, but the Administration isn’t going there, preferring to promote more traditional supplies.