From an editorial in today's Washington Post:

A Democratic energy bill has died in the Senate -- and it's probably just as well. For the most part, it was election-year symbolism. Several provisions, such as a Justice Department investigation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, a windfall profits tax and an end to certain oil industry tax breaks, might have stuck it to alleged culprits, but they would have had little or no impact on prices at the gas pump.

Congress cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. In real terms, the price of crude oil has topped the postwar record set in 1980. Between these two peaks, oil was cheap -- encouraging Americans to adopt fuel consumption habits that are painful to sustain now. And we were not the only ones gassing up; India, China and other rapidly growing developing nations began consuming more as well. Especially in the past two years, global demand has begun to outstrip supply -- as production stagnated or declined slightly in Mexico, Venezuela, the North Sea and even Saudi Arabia. According to BP, the international oil company, global oil production fell by 126,000 barrels a day in 2007, while consumption grew by a million barrels a day. Notably, all of last year's increase came in countries other than the United States and Europe, where demand actually went down a bit. Prospects are for more of the same, and the commodities markets reflect that.

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You can read the entire editorial here.