John Edwards Attacks Big Oil With Laser-Like Focus

Big Oil is everyone's first, second or third favorite target. Yet it seems every time a candidate castigates the oil industry the hymn is always out of the same song book. Therefore it is especially refreshing to hear a candidate come at the topic with a focused grasp of the issues at hand.

Campaigning in Menlo Park California Edwards called for a number of steps to be taken to rein in the oil industry's excesses including a federal investigation into possible anti-trust violations. Nothing particularly new here except in one essential respect. Edwards called on Congress to overhaul the Clayton Anti-Trust Act in order to make it more responsive to a global economy wherein restraint of supply, whether open or covert has an impact on the American marketplace.

Tellingly, he alone among the candidates identified one of the major distortions of the oil landscape. He pointed out that oil companies by and large "own every step of the production process, extraction, refining, sales at the pump" an anomaly that inherently can lead to anti competitive distortions and generally much higher prices.

As if on cue, Tupper Hall, spokesman of the Western States Petroleum Association responded to Edward's concerns by plying us with that old oil patch pitch, "The increased price at the pump is nothing more than a reflection of the crude oil market," confident that we, the consumers, have never awoken to the fact that the gouging begins at the well and not the pump and of course hopeful that Edwards' focus on the vertical integration of much of the oil industry and its impact on the prices we pay, will be swept aside.

And then there are issues new to the dialogue of presidential aspirants. One issue especially pertinent is the global and electronic trading of commodities, and especially oil and its related product markets. Edwards calls for the reversal of the Enron-Era deregulation of commodity futures trading markets that "have been vulnerable to manipulation and speculation," calling on Congress to restore basic transparency and oversight.

There are other meaningful and important points that reflect general consensus issues, i.e. increasing fuel economy, supporting bio-fuel development, ending taxpayer subsidies for oil companies.

One issue, however, stands out. Edward's call to initiate programs that will culminate in reducing greenhouse gases by 80% by the year 2050. Fanciful? Perhaps. But we will never get there, or at the very least where we need to be, without large ambition to set out difficult but attainable goals and the vision to embark on doing the needful.

Oil, gas prices, energy generally and the manipulation of markets are clearly becoming ever more important and focused issues of the 2008 campaign.