Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Anti-Market Manipulation Enforcement Efforts Ten Years After EPAct 2005 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Market manipulation threatens the integrity of energy markets. It does so by its actual consequences-harming consumers, rendering prices and price-setting mechanisms inaccurate and unreliable, interfering with market operations, siphoning money away from market participants who are playing by the rules, and other ills that should have no place in our nation's energy markets. It also does so by causing entities participating in, benefiting from, or affected by energy markets to lose confidence that markets are working fairly and producing results consistent with market rules and fundamentals. This became starkly and dramatically clear during the Western Energy Crisis of 2000-2001, when Enron and other companies engaged in a variety of manipulative schemes that wreaked havoc on energy markets that were designed to ensure optimal rates for energy market participants and consumers based on economic principles of supply and demand. The schemes, which have been well documented, were sophisticated, wide-ranging, and reflected major structural changes that had taken place in energy markets over the past three decades. The existence of these schemes, and the inability of government to effectively detect, stop, and penalize them, were-and remain-wholly incompatible with well-functioning energy markets that are essential to our society.