“A bill to ensure transparent and competitive transportation fuel markets in order to protect consumers from unwarranted price increases.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section expands the prohibitions on market manipulation and false information under subtitle B of title VIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It applies the prohibitions to transportation fuel by replacing references to “gasoline or petroleum distillates” and adding a definition of “transportation fuel” that includes gasoline, distillate fuels (including heating oil), jet fuel, aviation gasoline, and biofuel (including ethanol, biomass-based diesel and distillates, and renewable blending components). It broadens the false information prohibition to cover information related to the supply of, operational actions related to, output related to, or wholesale prices of transportation fuel; removes the requirement that such information be provided to a Federal department or agency; eliminates the prior paragraph (2); and revises the intent element to require that the person intended the false or misleading information to affect analyses rather than data compiled by an agency. It also increases the maximum civil penalty for violations to $2,000,000 (from $1,000,000) and updates the enforcement reference to section 5(m)(1)(A) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
This section establishes the Transportation Fuel Monitoring and Enforcement Unit within the Federal Trade Commission. The Unit’s primary responsibility is to assist the Commission in protecting the public interest by continuously collecting, monitoring, and analyzing crude oil and transportation fuel market data to support transparent and competitive markets, identify market manipulation or false reporting, and facilitate enforcement actions. Specific duties include compiling buying and selling activity to detect anomalous trends, assessing whether excessive concentration of energy infrastructure enables anti-competitive behavior, gathering evidence of violations under subtitle B of title VIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (as amended), and securing data-sharing agreements with the Energy Information Administration, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, state energy offices, and other public and private sources covering physical and financial positions, refinery output and inventories, imports and exports, and company announcements. The section defines transportation fuel to include gasoline, distillate fuels, jet fuel, aviation gasoline, and biofuels. It requires the Commission to promulgate implementing regulations within 90 days of enactment and authorizes such sums as may be necessary for each of fiscal years 2026 through 2031.
This section establishes a transportation fuel market transparency program at the Energy Information Administration. It directs the Administrator to conduct surveys of energy companies (i.e., those owning or controlling commercial amounts of crude oil or transportation fuel, or engaged in exploration, extraction, refining, storage, transportation, or distribution) to collect detailed data on quantities imported, exported, refined, stored, transported, and sold, as well as market prices and origin tracking, at national, regional, state, and company levels. The section exempts companies with de minimis market presence, requires public release of geographically specific analyses, mandates a data-sharing agreement with the Federal Trade Commission within one year, permits agreements with other agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and authorizes appropriations for fiscal years 2026 through 2031.
This section directs the Federal Trade Commission to submit a report within 90 days of enactment to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on its enforcement actions against prohibited market manipulation or false information under section 813 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 during calendar year 2025 and the preceding five calendar years. The report must include, for each such year, the number of enforcement actions initiated and completed, including the number resulting in violations of sections 811 or 812 (with the average number of violations per action, average civil penalty assessed, and aggregate penalties collected) and the number resulting in findings of no violation.