This post was edited and condensed from today’s Progress Report, the daily ThinkProgress newsletter. Subscribe here.

While there are several causes that contribute to rise in oil prices, many experts point to Wall Street speculation: hedge funds, investors, and big banks trying making money by betting on the price fluctuation of oil and other commodities, often with exotic financial instruments. Unregulated speculation can artificially inflate the price of oil beyond the price that natural supply and demand forces would set, as the market is swamped by traders who don’t care about the financial well-being of oil producers and consumers. If matters get out of hand, speculatory excess can even destroy the entire market, as happened when mortgage derivatives overwhelmed the long-term stability of the housing market. Lesser amounts of this kind of vulture capitalism can precipitate economic decline and suffering when too many people can no longer afford food and energy.

Experts concluded in 2008 that that year’s spike in oil and other commodity prices couldn’t possibly be explained by supply and demand forces, and that speculation must have played a role. “[T]here is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices,” a House Homeland Security Committee report on oil prices from 2008 concluded.

The same appears to be true today. Speculation on energy futures, including oil, is at an all-time high, jumping 64 percent even since 2008. Speculation was blamed by both Republicans and Democrats three years ago for oil prices, and even with conservatives’ tea party embrace of Wall Street today, several Republican congressmen, and conservative leaders have acknowledged that speculation is a driver of oil prices.

Recognizing the problem of oil speculation, Congress gave the government new powers to protect consumers and help ensure market stability with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law passed last year. The law gives the CFTC the ability to limit “excessive speculation” by limiting the bets speculators can make. The law expanded the CFTC’s authority to regulate the entire market for the first time. While futures — bets on the future prices of commodities like oil and wheat — were regulated before the law passed, traders could choose to instead purchase “look-alike” futures that were not subject to regulation. Dodd-Frank changes this by allowing the CFTC to “impose a uniform set of rules across exchanges and the over-the-counter market, replacing a patchwork of inconsistent restrictions for different venues and commodities.” Curbing regulation could help make these markets more stable and transparent, and help bring down the cost of oil.

But the CFTC has so far failed to take up this responsibility and write the rules that would rein in oil speculators. The agency missed a January deadline to file new rules because of opposition from the commission’s Republican members and one of its Democrats, CFTC commissioner Michael Dunn. The agency’s chairman, Gary Gensler — a Democrat and former Goldman Sachs banker — has taken a lead in advocating strong new rules on speculation, but the Republican commissioners have been foot dragging to defend Wall Street’s profits, making Dunn the swing vote. Dunn has said he does not have enough information to sign off on new rules, despite the fact that the agency has received hundreds of public comments and held at least 75 meetings with experts, stakeholders, and the public on the matter.

Dunn’s term is ending this summer, giving President Obama an opportunity to appoint someone who is willing to follow the law and rein in speculation.

The CFTC faces another threat from Republicans on a different front. H.R.1, the House Republican approved spending plan for the remainder of 2011, includes a nearly one-third cut in the CFTC’s budget. Such a draconian cut would require the CFTC to lay off more than 30 percent of its staff. Moreover, House “Republicans are threatening repercussions for regulators that ignore their concerns.”

“We’d have to have significant curtailment of our staff and resources,” CFTC Chairman Gensler said. “We would not be able to police…or ensure transparent markets in futures or swaps.”

The Republican effort to take cops off the oil trade beat would allow speculators to continue to drive up prices, ensuring even bigger profits for oil companies and Wall Street bankers.

The nuclear disaster in Japan continues to deepen the sense of devastation from one of the worst tsunamis in history.  Brad Johnson has the story.

Despite a long history of concern over the safety of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, nuclear power boosters like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) now claim the ongoing meltdown is something “no one has ever really anticipated outside of science fiction movies.”

Fueled by intense lobbying from the nuclear industry, Republicans in the House of Representatives are ignoring the meltdown, pushing full steam ahead with billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear plants, even as they zero out programs for renewable energy. The Department of Energy’s successful clean energy loan guarantee program is on the chopping block “” except for nuclear power. On Face the Nation, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) criticized the choice to put public money on risky nuclear companies instead of clean wind, solar, and geothermal power:

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Plus Tom Toles on “Fine for a painting, but not for a planet?”

I have a bonus Toles blog post and cartoon (in color) at the end, but first, here’s a post from my colleague Matt Yglesias:

A frontal assault on the idea of prudential regulation of the financial system is unlikely to be a political winner, so the smart guys are sneaking through the back door:

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This is a nice infographic from imgur [click to enlarge]:

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The potential and peril of hydraulic fracturing

Tom Kenworthy, Daniel J. Weiss, Lisbeth Kaufman, and Christina C. DiPasquale, in a CAP cross-post. The AP photo is a Chesapeake Energy natural gas well site.

A widely used oil-and-gas drilling technique, hydraulic fracturing, is spreading rapidly to develop vast reserves of natural gas trapped in deep underground shale formations. Hydraulic fracking, however, is coming under more rigorous oversight by the press and state and federal agencies because of its contribution to air and water pollution. This attention is welcome, both to ensure that health and safety will be protected if gas is to be more widely used as a cleaner replacement for coal in electric plants and foreign oil as a transportation fuel. We must also more accurately measure carbon dioxide and other pollution from the combustion of gas compared to coal and oil.

This issue brief explores the ecological and economic issues of “fracking,” as it is increasingly coming to be known in the areas of the country where natural gas is tapped due to the technology. Cutting to the chase, our conclusion is this””hydraulic fracturing needs to be done carefully and be well-monitored, with particular attention paid to the full scope of carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere to gauge accurately the consequences of global warming due to the expanded use of natural gas.

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Global wind capacity hit 194.4 GW in 2010.

Wind power surges forward around the globe (by Lester Brown)

For many years, a small handful of countries dominated growth in wind power, but this is changing as the industry goes global, with more than 70 countries now developing wind resources. Between 2000 and 2010, world wind electric generating capacity increased at a frenetic pace from 17,000 megawatts to nearly 200,000 megawatts.

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A preponderance of scientific evidence shows that even low doses of ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, are likely to pose some risk of adverse health effects, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council”¦..

Ahh, why do the anti-science extremists always manage to find and/or misrepresent a tiny number of old studies to trumpet their nonsense — but ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

So who are you going to believe, citizens of Japan and people living near US nuclear reactors?  Ann Coulter — or the National Research Council’s Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (!), quoted above?

You can read Coulter’s nonsense in a column called “A Glowing Report On Radiation,” or watch her on Thursday’s “O’Reilly Factor”:

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As ThinkProgress and others have noted, the 2011 budget proposed by House Republicans “” as well as the three-week continuing resolution they just passed “” eliminates critical funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that will hamper the agency’s ability to track and respond to tsunamis. The agency said the cuts “will take away [our] ability to upgrade tsunami models and will put considerable stress on watchstanders ability to react.”

The cuts were roundly pilloried in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But last week, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) “” a Tea Party favorite and rigid ideologue on budget cuts “” said he still favors the reduction, and dismissed calls to restore the funding because “we often over-react” to natural disasters.  TP has the story and video:

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Progressivism on Tap: March 23, 2011, 6:30pm – 7:30pm.

Details here.