While Devon Energy was one of three oil and gas companies that declined this week to take part in one Democrat-led House committee hearing into rising energy prices, the company’s leader is expected to take part in another House committee hearing in early April.
Devon’s President and CEO Richard Muncrief is expected to be part of an April 6 hearing by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He and leaders of 5 other oil and gas companies reportedly have agreed to take part in the hearing.
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a hybrid hearing that includes both in-person and remote attendance on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, at 10:30 a.m.
The hearing is entitled, “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.”
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), who serves as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee – which oversees the nation’s fossil fuel industry – announced Tuesday that executives from Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Devon Energy and Pioneer Natural Resources will all appear before the panel on Wednesday, April 6, to answer lawmakers’ questions about the industry’s role in the skyrocketing cost of gasoline.
The hearing won’t likely be a friendly one as Rep. DeGette made clear in her announcement.
““Americans across the country are suffering from the skyrocketing cost of gasoline, while some the nation’s largest oil companies are reporting record high profits,” DeGette said. “We will not sit back and allow the fossil fuel industry to take advantage of the American people and gouge them at the pump. We want to know what’s causing these record-high prices and what needs to be done to bring them down immediately.”
Others who agreed to testify include David Lawler, Chairman and President of bp America, Inc. He previously was executive vice president and chief operating officer at SandRidge Energy and before that, was chief executive officer and president of PostRock Energy Corporation.
Michael K. Wirth, Chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation will also testify along with Darren Woods, CEO at ExxonMobil Corporation; Scott Sheffield, CEO at Pioneer Natural Resources Company; and Gretchen Watkins, President of Shell USA, Inc.
Devon, EOG Resources and Occidental Petroleum refused to take part in the hearing planned by the House Natural Resources Committee led by Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva. He was obviously peeved about the companies refusing to be part of his committee hearing.
“I invited these companies to come before the Committee and make their case, but apparently they don’t think it’s worth defending. Their silence tells us all we need to know—that cries for more drilling and looser regulations are nothing more than another age-old attempt to line their own pockets.”