As top oil executives testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, several Republican senators blasted the notion that the oil industry or the war in Ukraine is to blame for soaring gas prices.
GOP senators called the hearing a “kangaroo court,” as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz put it, to distract from the Biden administration’s failed energy policies at a press conference about rising gas prices.
OIL CEOS BRACE FOR CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON HIGH GAS PRICES
“Today in the House, the far-left climate elitists are holding another hearing with energy company executives,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. “They have amnesia, because they held a similar hearing in October, except what they were yelling about in October is, they said, ‘You shouldn’t produce more energy, don’t produce more.’ Today, they’re browbeating them to produce more. This is unbelievable.”
Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said accusing the energy companies of price gouging discounts the fact that President Joe Biden got rid of the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office.
“Over in the House of Representatives, they’re dragging in oil company executives and saying, ‘You’re gouging prices,” Lankford said. “Well, actually, let’s look at the math. On day one of the Biden administration, they stepped up and canceled the Keystone pipeline.”
Cruz also said that the strangle on oil in the United States is exactly what the Democrats wanted.
“I’ve got to say, the kangaroo court that’s playing out in the house is particularly amusing because you have Democrats yelling at oil companies, ‘Why aren’t you investing more capital?’ when every single nominee from the Biden administration has laid out their objective to starve the energy industry of capital,” Cruz said. “The SEC is trying to cut off equity funding, the banking regulators are trying to cut off debt funding. If you have no capital, you can’t drill.”
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Executives from the six top oil companies testified Wednesday in response to a Democratic investigation into the rise in gas prices.
“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.
