By Holly Meyer

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is pushing for legislation that would add stricter regulations to the oil industry and address rising gas prices for the short term.

At a news conference Tuesday in Collinsville, Durbin said he would reintroduce a bill in September that would give more authority to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating oil and commodity futures markets.

The goal of the legislation is to stop excessive speculation of oil prices that drives up the price at the pump, Durbin said.

"It is causing you to dig deeper into your pockets for gasoline," Durbin said.

The same legislation was introduced earlier this summer but did not advance.

Exxon Mobil announced last week it broke its own record for quarterly profits by bringing in $11.7 billion in the second quarter of the year. Not only was this the largest profit for an oil company, but it was also the largest profit for any company ever.

Durbin said that if Bush administration released oil from the strategic oil reserve immediately, the price per barrel of oil could go from about $140 per barrel to around $100 per barrel within a week.