Executives from six top oil companies will testify Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about efforts to curb the spike in gas prices after they soared last month to their highest point since 2008.
The hearing comes as part of Democrats’ broader effort to deflect blame for the uptick in gas prices ahead of this year’s midterm elections, in which they are hoping to retain their narrow House and Senate majorities.
To that end, Democrats have sought to cast blame on Russia for the increase in gas prices, as well as oil and gas companies, which they have accused of keeping prices artificially high in order to pad their own pockets.
“It’s time we get to the bottom of why oil companies are content to watch Americans suffer so that their shareholders and executives can reap enormous profits,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone said in a statement last month announcing the hearing.
But Republicans say they expect that effort to fall flat and instead have sought to characterize the hearing as a last-ditch effort by Democrats to distance themselves from a crisis of their own creation.
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“This hearing is an attempt by the Democrats and by the Biden administration to shift the blame and avoid responsibility for skyrocketing gas prices,” Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in an interview Tuesday.
Asked whether she saw any truth in Democrats’ claims that oil companies are to blame for the recent uptick, McMorris Rodgers said, “I think that [Democrats] are concerned about rising gas prices, but they’re not committed to the policies that are actually going to bring down gas prices.”
This sentiment was echoed by some industry officials as well.
The Biden administration’s recent efforts to increase oil and gas supplies have been “around us, not with us,” said Dan Eberhart, the CEO of drilling services company Canary, who ticked off the Biden administration’s recent decisions, including the release of 180 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “Calling OPEC. Gas tax holidays,” he added. “These are levers that work around the industry, not with the industry.”
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“You know, data points point to us wanting to produce more oil, yet we’re producing less,” Eberhart added. “I think that’s a policy effect to me. And you know, they’ve changed the rhetoric in the last few weeks, but I don’t think they’re really changing the policy.”
