WASHINGTON — White House hopeful Barack Obama attacked energy speculators Sunday, outlining new regulatory proposals that his campaign said would slash record-high oil prices and help hard-pressed consumers. The Democrat attacked the so-called Enron loophole, a 2000 deregulation of oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that critics say opened the way to a speculative free-for-all in the oil markets. ‘For the past years, our energy policy in this country has been simply to let the special interests have their way — opening up loopholes for the oil companies and speculators so that they could reap record profits while the rest of us pay four dollars a gallon,’ Obama said in a statement. ‘My plan fully closes the Enron loophole and restores common-sense regulation as part of my broader plan to ease the burden for struggling families today while investing in a better future,’ the Illinois senator said. After a week of furious controversy over Republican John McCain’s call for the lifting of a federal ban on offshore oil drilling, Democrats said they would introduce new anti-speculation bills in Congress this week. But McCain’s campaign said the Republican had already backed legislative action against speculative […]