Your next thought should be that the person uttering this phrase is challenged in terms of economics.
The Congressional leadership would like to find a scapegoat for energy prices. "Speculators" have been blamed for everything from the Great Depression to the housing bubble. But a fundamental understanding of futures markets – not to mention supply and demand – will help us cool our heads and temper our blame-laying. Indeed, if we look at the basic issue of supply (particularly in a lack of any real increase in domestic supply), the problem lies at the feet of those shouting the loudest about "speculators" on Capitol Hill.
-Max Borders
As noted in this column, scapegoating speculators well predates the Great Depression:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0293c.asp
“Politicians eager to “do something” about high prices often make laws to punish the speculator. A representative incident occurred during the reign of Emperor Diocletian in Rome in A.D. 300. Speculators were withholding scarce provisions from the hoarders, hoping to unload when the demand was even more intense. To remedy this, Diocletian set the highest price for beef, grains, clothing and several hundred other items. Anyone who sold at a higher price would be put to death.
The result? As reported by Lactantius in A.D. 314, “Much blood was shed upon slight and trifling accounts. The people brought no more provisions to the markets, since they could not get a reasonable price for them, and this increased the dearth so much that at last after many had died by it, the law itself was laid aside.””
Good old government interventionism. Funny how liberals in this state fancy themselves “progressives” when they are driven by an economically illiterate, interventionist mindset dating back nearly 2,000 years. How forward looking.