Tax on Oil Speculators Introduced in House

In a step towards reining in the Wall Street gamblers who caused the financial meltdown, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced a financial speculation tax on oil markets. H.R. 2003, the Taxing Speculators Out of the Oil Market Act, would target the Wall Street speculation that is responsible for unnecessarily inflating the price of gas up to 80 cents a gallon. DeFazio’s bill would immediately penalize speculative market manipulation and would simultaneously lower the cost of gas.

"This Memorial Day weekend, families all across America are digging deep to pay $60 for a fill up at the gas station. And $12 of that $60 will go to speculators on Wall Street," DeFazio said. "Today I introduced legislation that would bring immediate relief to Americans struggling to fill up their tanks."

H.R. 2003 will deter speculation by raising the cost to bet on oil markets. Just by charging a tiny 0.01% tax on each transaction, excessive speculation would become too expensive and risky for Wall Street.