Glad to hear:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed this morning to make the CEOs of major oil companies appear before the Senate to answer questions about alleged price gouging.
The rhetoric comes as Democrats and the White House look to redirect the debate over high gasoline prices — stemming largely from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine — away from the Biden administration’s energy policy.
“The bewildering incongruity between falling oil prices and rising gas prices smacks of price gouging and is deeply damaging to working Americans,” Schumer said during his daily floor speech. “The Senate is going to get answers, and that’s why we will be calling on the CEOs of major oil companies to come testify before Congress.”
Schumer’s announcement did not indicate which committee would hold such a hearing, although multiple panels could claim jurisdiction, including those of Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.); Commerce, Science and Transportation Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.); and Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Schumer’s office did not return a request for more information about the potential oil executive testimony. Cantwell mentioned the possibility of such a hearing of her committee during an Energy and Natural Resources session last week.
Cantwell today said, “We are all exploring how we can get more information about what we can do to protect the American consumer.”
Manchin has been urging the administration to lessen restrictions on fossil fuel production. Today he didn’t seem keen on going after oil companies.
“I have no problem bringing them in to basically explain how the process works,” Manchin told reporters. “Then we can all understand it a little better, rather than beating people up who are expected to provide the energy we need.”
And yes, Schumer called it price gouging:
Inflation and gas prices are shaping up as prominent topics for the midterm elections in November, and some Democrats in Congress want to suspend the federal gas tax in the face of higher gas costs while members of both parties are pushing domestic oil companies to increase production.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D- Ariz., at a Feb. 17 hearing, pressed an executive of Shell at a hearing to ramp up production. But experts at that hearing said more production from the U.S. petroleum industry may not lower pump prices, given a short supply of workers, supply chain disruptions, swirling COVID-19 variants and demands from investors who want more certain financial returns.
It was not clear which executives Schumer wants call to testify or when a hearing or hearings would occur. Spokespeople for the senator did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Schumer took issue with what he described as possible “price gouging.”
“Over the past few weeks, as war in Ukraine began, the price of a barrel of oil rose precipitously,” Schumer said. “That immediately translated to oil and gas companies raising the price for Americans at the pump. But something is happening that Americans shouldn’t overlook,” he said. “Over the past few days, oil prices have actually been decreasing but the price of gas at the pump has not.”
And President Biden is on the same page as Majority Leader Schumer:
Thank you Senator Schumer for taking action. By the way, since I’ve been away for a while, there was a great piece about DSCC Chairman, U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D. MI), who has one mission: make Chuck Schumer’s life easier. From this piece in Politico last month:
Now, even as Biden’s approval ratings crater and incumbent Democrats publicly sweat over inflation, Peters is setting a high bar for success this fall. He doesn’t want to just hold the Senate majority — a task that probably means protecting every single incumbent in states like Arizona and Georgia — he wants to make Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s job a hell of a lot easier: “It’s a sense of mission for me to get to 52 or more” Senate seats, Peters said.
Picking up two seats might not sound like a herculean task, but it would make him a near-legend in Democratic Party lore. It’s vanishingly rare for the party in power to pick up seats in the first midterm election after a new president takes over, and Biden’s current approval slump isn’t helping. Senate Republicans managed to do it with a favorable battleground map in 2018 even as they lost the House — a formula Democrats may have to replicate this year.
Peters’ own resume of racking up wins in Michigan is giving Democrats hope for a fighting chance. The former Michigan lottery commissioner’s probably gotten a little luck along the way, but his personal political story is one of survival by any means necessary.
He swept into office in 2008 by knocking off a House GOP incumbent, survived the tea party wave of 2010, beat fellow Democratic incumbent Hansen Clarke in a redistricting-stoked primary in 2012 and was the only new Democratic senator to take office after the 2014 shellacking.
Let’s give Schumer a real majority. Click below to donate and get involved with these incumbents re-election campaigns and to these Democratic Senate candidates:
Mark Kelly (D. AZ)
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