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The article reports on efforts of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee to speed up the passage of a legislation that would combat energy market manipulation and excessive speculation. The committee will move up a hearing from June 25, 2008 to June 24 that addresses concerns that unfair market practices are artificially inflating energy prices, and then mark up the bill introduced by Agriculture General Farm Commodities Subcommittee Chairman Bob Etheridge.

The article reports that acting U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Walter Lukken will ask the Congress for increased authority to regulate Exempt Commercial Markets, where certain commodities such as energy products are traded by institutions. That linkage was not anticipated when the Modernization Act was passed several years ago, Lukken says in prepared testimony for the House Agriculture General Farm Commodities and Risk Subcommittee.

The article reports that opponents of current farm policy are going to get their chance to have their proposals debated. U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said that he expects the Agriculture General Farm Commodities Subcommittee to debate and possibly vote on the alternatives that will include the bill introduced by Representatives Ron Kind and Jeff Flake which would end all crop, dairy and sugar programs and replace them with spending on rural development.

Reports on United States House Agriculture General Farm Commodities & Risk Management Subcommittee member Calvin Dooley's comments on the Budget Committee's deadline for the Agriculture Committee to rewrite the commodity title of the 1996 farm bill. Timetable for the rewrite; Dooley's comments on the U.S. Senate's stance toward the rewrite.