When the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on skyrocketing gas prices kicked off on Wednesday, there was no denying the tension between lawmakers demanding accountability from oil and gas executives and the very leaders who declined to appear in person for the meeting, titled “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America's Pain at the Pump.” The six-hour meeting saw testimony from the likes of BP Chairman and President David Lawler, Shell President Gretchen Watkins, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, and Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Diana DeGette came out swinging in her opening statements, placing the blame of sustained high gas prices at the pump despite overall lower oil prices.
“Some of our witnesses today have stated publicly that their focus is not on helping Americans families or on fueling America’s economy—it’s enriching their shareholders,” DeGette said. “It’s that type of focus that led these six companies, alone, to collectively report over $75 billion dollars in profits last year. When oil companies are being honest about why they haven’t increased the supply of oil, they say that it’s pressure from their shareholders—not government regulation—that’s holding them back.” DeGette pointed out that Devon Energy President and CEO Richard Muncrief, who was one of Wednesday’s witnesses, “even told the media it wouldn’t matter if crude were as high as $200 a barrel—they simply weren’t going to produce more.” This isn’t an exaggeration: It’s exactly what Muncrief said during a Bloomberg TV appearance in February.
Democrats consistently held Big Oil’s feet to the fire, with Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush’s time masterfully spent grilling Watkins over Shell’s decision to continue buying Russian oil even as other companies were doing the opposite. “The same week that other companies announced that they were taking a step back from Russia, [Shell] was buying cheap Russian crude oil. Shell bought over 700,000 barrels of Russian urals crude oil for nearly $30 under per barrel under the national oil prices. It managed to convert that oil that it sold at normal prices. That single purchase would represent over $20 million in profits. These profits are nothing short of war profits, blood money soaked in the blood of innocent Ukrainian citizens,” Rush said. “Well, Shell has since apologized. But it seems to me like it is an insincere apology. Are they sorry they did it or are they sorry they got caught while doing it?”
Watkins could not answer for when the decision was made to buy up Russian oil at a discount that was indeed nearly $30 lower than what was typical at the time. She also failed to note that, before CEO Ben Van Beurden said he had approved the decision but made a mistake, Shell actually doubled down on its decision. The company released a statement on March 5 stating that it was “appalled” by the Russia-Ukraine conflict but apparently cared so little that making the “difficult” decision to turn a profit was one the company felt was worth justifying. Making such a decision likely didn’t just fall to Van Beurden, and Rush wanted to know who else had the final say, yet Watkins could not answer whether anyone on the board was part of the approvals process and said she simply didn’t know how the process worked.
Listen to Meteor Blades, Mark Sumner, and Markos Moulitsas talk about our dependence on dictator oil on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
Frequently, oil executives could not answer for why their companies continued to benefit from geopolitical conflict and the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Lawmakers primarily cut off testimony from the execs, to the chagrin of some Republicans, who took sympathetic tones towards some of the world’s worst polluters. Representatives like Texas’ Dan Crenshaw even slammed what he believes are environmental activists pushing some type of agenda, as if rising gas prices—an issue that most certainly impacts Crenshaw’s constituents—was just some fringe cause. GOP Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia printed up and enlarged receipts from constituents who were in the difficult position of being unable to afford gas to commute to work but naturally being unable to miss work because it was what’s putting food on their tables.
Plenty of Republicans were more interested in pushing trite talking points and perpetuating the gimmicky Trumpism that has “Let’s Go Brandon” merchandise overtaking many gas station convenience stores. At least four lawmakers—Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Rep. Debbie Lesko of Wisconsin, Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, and Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia—held up charts that featured stickers of President Biden alongside the words “I did that.” These are stickers I see all over Metairie, which is the town over from New Orleans and unsurprisingly where Amy Coney Barrett and other abysmal conservatives hail from. So dazzled is Metairie by its Republican figures that the town recently renamed a street in honor of Barrett. But that renaming is as much of a distraction as the many GOP lawmakers who squandered their five minutes at Wednesday’s hearing to bemoan how much cheaper (it really wasn’t) gas was when Trump left office.
There are indeed creative solutions to lessen the burden of gas prices for Americans. Rep. Sharice Davis of Kansas recently introduced a bill that would suspend federal gas taxes and greatly benefit the folks who need that relief the most, instead of relying on oil companies to do the right thing when they clearly cannot. Davis also called on additional pushes for domestic manufacturing, addressing supply chain issues, and more quickly transitioning towards cleaner energy solutions.