Dr. Cooper says:

The upward pressure that speculation puts on prices is not limited to crude, but applies to the whole energy complex and recent months have seen sharp increases in gasoline prices despite weakening fundamentals.[...]Growing global demand certainly has played a role in triggering the price spiral of recent years, but in a well-functioning market, steadily growing demand would not cause such a powerful upward surge in prices and a huge increase in volatility (see Attachment 5). It is the failure on the supply-side to invest, mergers resulting in highly concentrated markets, and barriers to entry that have allowed the cartel and the oligopoly to profit at the expense of the public. Speculation magnifies the upward spiral.

The airline-backed coalition, and senior members of Congress, back changes to the rules of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to reduce the impact of speculation. PIRG has long backed some of these reforms, including unsuccessful efforts to close the Enron loophole opened during the reign of then-CFTC chair Wendy Gramm and to reverse later amendments to the CFTC championed by her husband, former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX). These issues are explained in this recent Texas Observer article by Patricia Hart and a recent "Fresh Air" interview with Professor Michael Greenberger.