Futures markets seen akin to "Sodom and Gomorrah"

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Crude oil traders bear more blame for record-high prices than big oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), a key House lawmaker said on Thursday.

Exxon, the world's largest oil company not run by a state, last week reported fourth-quarter net income of $11.66 billion, the highest-ever profit for a U.S. company, driven in part by crude oil futures near $100 a barrel.

"Everybody's blaming the oil companies" for high oil prices, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell said in an interview for the Reuters Regulation Summit.

Fellow Democrats have decried oil company profits but "in the litany of sinners I don't find them to be very near the top," said the Michigan Democrat, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The true guilty parties, Dingell said, are underregulated futures exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"That's a fine place and there is all matter of rascality that can go on there in the dark," Dingell said of futures exchanges in general.

"I don't think futures markets are much more honest than Sodom and Gomorrah," Dingell said, a biblical reference to two ancient cities wiped away by God because of wickedness.

Some Democrats in the Senate want to give U.S. regulators more authority over electronic markets like the IntercontinentalExchange Inc, which is exempt from the strictest oversight.

Dingell said he has no plans to pursue similar legislation but "we're watching."

That's no idle threat from the chairman of a committee that has subpoena authority that it has used to investigate the likes of Enron Corp, Firestone Tire and British oil giant BP Plc.

"I worry very much about what is going on up at these futures exchanges," Dingell said. "But I don't know enough about that and nor does anybody else around here to know what kind of rascality is going on."

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Chris Baltimore, editing by Richard Chang)