While Oklahoma City’s Devon Energy company and other oil and gas majors called to testify Wednesday before a House Energy and Commerce Committee, other congressional committees also want to explore what they consider to be price gouging at the pump as the result of high oil prices.
Leaders of Devon, BP America, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Pioneer Natural Resources will face questions at the hearing carrying the title of “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.” It’s a title created by Democrats who lead the committee and want to blame the oil and gas industry for high gasoline prices and not the Biden administration and its anti-oil and gas policies.
But other congressional committees are considering similar hearings. The Senate Commerce Committee is one such group that wants to explore what’s really behind high fuel prices.
POLITICO reported that committee Chair Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state is intent on getting some oil and gas leaders to testify before her committee. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has also pushed for the same kind of testimony.
Add to that effort the consideration of the House Oversight Committee which has tried for months to hear from industry representatives as it investigates climate change misinformation. This week, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, who chairs the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California who chairs the Environment Subcommittee, wrote to four major oil and gas firms and informed them the committee was adding price gouging to the probe.
“Big Oil has long sought to deflect criticism over decades of climate disinformation by putting forth misleading company pledges to improve the appearance of companies’ carbon
footprints,” stated the Democratic leaders in their letter.
“Yet experts at the Committee’s February 2022 hearing testified that your companies’ investments in renewable energy are woefully insufficient to address the deepening climate crisis
and often rely on unproven technology rather than reliable clean energy sources like wind and solar.”
In the letter to ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron and Shell, the Democrats called on the firms to suspend stock buybacks and dividends during the war in Ukraine.
“Big Oil must immediately stop profiteering off the crisis in Ukraine,” they stated.
“Big Oil’s profits have been used to enrich investors and executives—at the expense of American consumers paying higher gas prices,” added Reps. Maloney and Khanna.