Not an an either/or question ...

It is not simply a question of government regulation of oil speculation / prices. That's addressing the symptom rather than the problem. No amount of US regulation of domestic supplies or imports will reign in the whims of OPEC. In other words in terms of oil in specific, you're asking the wrong question. If you want to discuss the Constitutionality of price regulation, or simply whether it "works"/is justifiable, we can, but with oil its' a false choice. If the United States government wants to reign in prices to a "stable" level, with protected supplies - the latter being just as vital as price to national security, then the answer would be making domestic energy production paramount.

And no one need give me this nonsensical "it'll take 10 years to get ANWR online", we've moved way past that. Offshore and mainland domestic oil recovery, both crude and shale, combined with natural gas recovery efforts, nuclear plant construction, oil refinery construction, clean coal advancement, ALL OF THIS government can spur on with radical deregulation. Hell, just the president announcing such a bold plan is likely to knock $40 off per barrel of crude within 24 hours. And not only will this do more for national security than price regulation/fixing, it protects the beloved environment much more efficiently as we will be better stewards in recovery than say, Iran.

Price fixing as a concept rarely works. Are there war time or emergency situations where government has taken the liberty? Obviously. Americans have always been willing to grant extraordinary powers to their government during times of war and crisis, but as a policy it should no more be a common place strategy then any other temporary, emergency, war time measure (rationing, various security measures such as internment, etc).

Oh, and my recommendations above, for energy security ... as President Obama flies to Copenhagen for a global warming summit I'd say we are headed in the opposite direction, which seems to be the only direction this president knows. This even with the recent revelation that one of the primary, "founding" institutions which successfully pushed global warming to the UN and NASA had scientists flat out faking results and data as was demonstrated when a hacker released thousands of private emails showing such deception. Of course you'd have to be watching FOX, get your news online, or listen to talk radio to have even heard this story reported (the networks haven't touched it, yet); but once you examine it you'll be employing the same adjectives as I - "snake oil salesman", "con artists" etc, etc. More on "climate gate" after some research.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!