Republicans have developed a strategy to try to play both sides of the ban on Russian oil and imports. They want to pretend they oppose Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and are on Ukraine’s side, while at the same time attacking President Joe Biden at home over gas prices. If Democrats respond forcefully to oil company price gouging, they can expose the lie and put Republicans on defense.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was at it again Wednesday morning ahead of a scheduled House vote to codify Biden’s import ban. “These aren’t Putin prices, they’re President Biden prices.” That was in response, in part, to Rep. Jim McGovern, who said on the floor Wednesday morning “we also ought to understand that part of these price hikes, in addition to the Putin price hike, is the oil company price hike.” The oil companies are using this crisis to jack up oil prices, he argued. “I love the fact that we can’t even get anybody to express the slightest bit of outrage over the fact that oil companies are gouging us, making record profits,” he continued.
He meant anybody on the Republican side, of course. Because Democrats have been all over it, and are looking at a potential solution: a windfall profit tax on oil companies gouging Americans with high gas prices.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also raised the issue at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. “We can no longer allow big oil companies, huge corporations and the billionaire class to use the murderous Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing pandemic as an excuse to price gouge consumers,” he tweeted. “It is time to enact a windfall profits tax and reasonable price controls.”
The soaring gas prices for U.S. consumers are the result of the sanctions on Russia from the U.S. and European Union (EU), gas companies keep saying. To be sure, one of the reasons the Biden administration and the EU hesitated on the move was because it would come back to hit consumers, particularly in Europe.
The reality in the U.S. is that only about 3% of our supply of oil comes from Russia—there are other sources for us. In fact, oil prices fell Wednesday when U.S. efforts to encourage more oil production in other sources looked to be succeeding. But the fact remains, war in Ukraine or not, oil company profits are at seven- and eight-year highs and they want to keep them rising by exploiting this crisis.
Oil supply isn’t the problem behind high prices. Big Oil is.
Republicans will, of course, oppose any effort by Democrats to force the Big Oil profiteers to keep prices in check, just like they’ll fight all efforts by Democrats to use this crisis to promote homegrown alternative energy, and end our dependence on rogue states for our energy needs.
The reality is Republicans want to do everything in their power to keep Americans feeling pain at the gas pump, because they think that helps them politically in the midterms. Which is downright unpatriotic. McGovern gives Democrats another talking point when it comes to the issue: “We have friends on the other side who spend all their time criticizing President Biden and very little mention of Putin. I think that says it all.”
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