After her now-famous inquisitions of Obama's treasury secretary Tim Geithner, it's hardly surprising that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who has a knack for blending a populist sensibility with a wonky command of the facts , grilled oil executives today at a senate finance committee hearing.



While the hearing was actually about a headline issue (oil industry subsidies), Cantwell took the opportunity to dig into her big issue: a proposal to rein in speculation in oil futures and energy commodity markets.

(Cantwell sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission yesterday demanding that the CFTC "take decisive action toward meeting its statutory deadline to implement new rules to protect consumers from excessive speculation and possibly manipulation in the energy futures and swaps markets.")

You'll have to watch the video to get a sense of Cantwell's Perry Mason dramatics, but here's her money quote, after cornering Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and getting him to say that based on traditional supply and demand, without the manipulations of speculators, oil should be at about $60-$70 a barrel (as opposed to the $98 price today):

The commodity markets were established to basically prevent, or to lessen, the risk that individual users have to take. And now with 70 percent of the market being driven by speculators that are not the end-takers of any product, I think you’re seeing this price driven up way in excess of what the fundamentals of a $60-70 barrel that you say would be supply and demand.

Cantwell led the lefty fight last year to put tighter regulations on Wall Street speculation in the financial reform bill. Geithner is now trying to undo some of those reforms.