I bet they make speculating illegal, and then go after people who manipulated the price to where it is now.
Very bad idea. You need speculators in the futures market to provide liquidity. It wouldn't be much of a market without buyers and sellers.
There
will be an oil futures market, and it
will have speculators. Count on it. Now, as for whether that market remains here in the US or moves to Dubai, that's for our blockheaded Democrat congrescritters to decide.
And nobody "manipulated" the price to where it is today. Lots of people think they can make a buck, so they're buying. (A good many of them are going to find out that they were wrong, but that's another subject.) Buying and selling isn't manipulation. Trading is simply something free people sometimes choose to do with their money.