The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged one trading house and two individuals for illegally manipulating oil prices during the price spike of 2008, when oil reached $147 a barrel, by creating the appearance of a shortage to drive up the benchmark for crude. While the action covers oil trading in 2008, the connection to today, where speculation is seen as a primary cause for higher gas prices, is unmistakable.

President Obama announced in his weekly address a plan to open part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil drilling. Through an executive order, the President would also extend leases in the Gulf of Mexico for oil concerns that were subject to the moratorium on deepwater drilling after the BP oil disaster, as well as speeding up evaluation of resources in the Atlantic, extending other leases in Alaska and building incentives for oil and gas companies to use land they own on existing leases on land and sea.

On a conference call, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey today released a report with Alan Krueger of Princeton University showing that the expiration of tax subsidies for the Big 5 oil companies will have no impact on gasoline prices. This is elementary when you consider the economics of the situation. The legislation Democrats have put forward would cancel $21 billion in subsidies over 10 years. The Big 5 oil companies made $35 billion last quarter. They simply would not feel the loss of these tax subsidies whatsoever, and if they “passed them on” to consumers, the resultant price increase could only be measured in fractions of a cent. And US jobs wouldn’t be affected either, Krueger said. “Because the U.S. is such a small producer, eliminating the subsidy would have very little effect in the long run and no effect in the short run on gas prices.”

The subtext here is that this is a political play. The best use of oil company tax breaks is not deficit reduction. At a time when dwindling global oil supplies will force us to completely restructure our energy and transportation infrastructure, that money could be put to use as an investment in that direction. In fact, President Obama’s budget plan would actually do that. But deficit reduction is perceived by leading Democrats as the best political use of those funds.

The President actually did put together a task force to monitor speculation and fraud in the oil markets. And some Senate Democrats have made noise on this as well. Perhaps they spooked the speculators.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined the increasing call for a crackdown on speculation in the oil markets. His letter to Barack Obama calls on the President to inform the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that they must impose strict limits on oil speculation, which is required in the Dodd-Frank law. He also wants Obama to ask for the immediate resignation of any CFTC commissioner who won’t impose these position limits on oil trading.

It’s disturbing that a well-known issue about over-speculation and imbalance in the oil markets goes years without any attention. Better late than never, I suppose, with the fraud task force, but it’s pretty late.

In GasHole, using interviews and witty archival footage, directors Scott D. Roberts and Jeremy Wagene, take us on a rollicking and insightful ride through the history of oil prices and the manipulations involved to keep prices high and profits flowing.

And if your religion can’t stop Satan or the Devil or El Diablo or whatever magical evil force you’ve conjured to frighten the rubes — well, neither can Mr Law. Listen up, unenlightened ones: YOUR FEARS ARE NOT ENOUGH.