Government steps up review of oil, commods price surge

By Joanne Morrison and Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators stepped up their efforts on Tuesday to determine why prices for oil and a range of other commodities have surged dramatically this year.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that an interagency panel, including the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and others, will assess price increases and trading in a range of commodities.

"High commodity prices are posing a significant strain on U.S. households," the CFTC said.

Other regulators on the new panel include the Securities and Exchange Commission and officials from the Energy and Agriculture Departments.

At a meeting with top Wall Street energy market players, a CFTC official said the government must investigate the run-up in oil prices, which topped a record $139 a barrel last week.

"The bottom line is, we need to investigate, in a comprehensive and probing manner, what is happening in these markets before making a rush to judgment about what is or what is not causing these unusual price movements," said Bart Chilton, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, at a meeting of the agency's energy markets advisory panel.

Chilton, a Democrat, spoke after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asserted that speculators were not causing the run-up in oil prices.

"Perhaps the Secretary has a crystal ball, but I don't, and given what I'm seeing and hearing in the markets and from market users, that seems to me to be a premature determination, at best," Chilton said.