By Jim Snyder
There may be one group of people who don't mind the soaring oil prices lobbyists.
Rising gas prices have provided steady employment on K Street, even if the spike has made it more expensive to fill up the SUVs lobbyists seem to favor.
Advocates of various stripes have had to fend off a variety of legislation that would do everything from opening OPEC up to antitrust lawsuits, to allowing oil and gas developers access to offshore areas now off-limits, to taxing windfall profits the industry now gets and redirecting the money to promote renewable energy.
None of these proposals ever has much hope of passing, although they return every year, meaning new contracts for K Street.
But as gas reaches a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time in the nations history, some see the makings of a consensus on Capital Hill: making it harder for investors to buy crude on the commodity futures markets.
Critics say the increased participation of non-commercial investors that don't intend to use the commodity as opposed to, say, airlines that also buy crude has helped raise prices.
Increasingly, lobbyists representing Wall Street and other investors are waking up to the idea that for all the bashing that oil executives have received in recent years, hedge funds and other oil speculators could end up paying the political price for high gas costs.
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