MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

Joining me now is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Senator, good to
have you with us.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Good to be with you.

SCHULTZ: If I have said anything that`s wrong, I want you to correct me.

SANDERS: No, I don`t think you have. Here`s the interesting point. Most people think that oil prices have something to do with supply and demand. Supply today is greater than it was three years ago, when the price of gas was 1.90 a gallon. It`s greater.

Demand today is lower than it was in 1997. You have to go all the way back to 1997. So the issue is not supply and demand in the United States. What is the issue? The issue has to do with the fact that over 80 percent of the oil futures market is controlled by speculators.

Their function in life is not to purchase oil, not to use oil, as an end user. They are not in the trucking business. They`re not in the airline business. Their sole purpose is to speculate and drive prices up.

That is exactly what they are doing right now.

SCHULTZ: And so how important is it to crack down on this oil speculation? And of course the Republicans are trying to stop the rule that is going to go in effect in October. We need it to go in effect right now. Of course, you`ll never get it from the right. Is this the key, senator?

SANDERS: I think it`s one of the keys. The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill stipulated that the Commodities Future Trading Commission is obligated to come up with rules, strong rules to limit speculation. You know what, they were supposed to have done this months and months ago.

They still haven`t done it. And that is a demand that we have got to make. They have to obey the law.

SCHULTZ: Rick Santorum said today that the Environmental Protection Agency is, quote, "raining terror over energy producers." What does that remark tell you?

SANDERS: It tells me, A, he knows nothing about what the EPA does. And B, it tells me that along with many of his Republican colleagues, these guys want to abolish the EPA, or greatly limit its authority.

The American people understand that it`s imperative that we have clean air, that we have clean water, that we don`t let corporations destroy our environment. They support the EPA. Many right wing Republicans literally want to abolish it or dismember it.

SCHULTZ: So Republicans basically are lying when they say that regulation and more drilling will lower prices -- that deregulation.

Here`s the bottom line here: the numbers don`t match up what they are talking about. And they are trying to pin this political football on the shoulders of the president, that he is the problem that gas is going up.

The Democrats I think have got to scream at the top of every building to make the American people understand how this is controlled on Wall Street. And if it`s 56 cents a gallon, is that -- that is added to this because of speculators, is that the difference between a good and a bad economy, in your opinion, and a stalled economy?

SANDERS: I come from a rural state. People drive 50, 100 miles to and from work every single day. That is true all over America. And if people are shelling out money to the oil companies or to the speculator, obviously that is less money going into other areas. It`s going to have a very negative impact on the economy.

But the point here is if supply in the United States today is high, and if demand is low, what the American people understand is there are other causes for the 3.70 that we`re paying for a gallon of gas right now.

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