It happens in or around May in any election year during which Democrats hold suitable positions in either house of Congress: heavily politicised show trial-style hearings targeting “Big Oil” begin. This has been an entirely predictable process across at least the last 30 years, and last week we found out this year will be no exception.
The first step comes when senior Democrats on certain committees in the Senate and/or House fire off hyperbolic letters to CEOs of “Big Oil” companies (this includes gas, of course) accusing them of all sorts of nefarious activities. Most frequently, the suggestion is that their companies have been engaging in “collusion” to “fix prices” for gasoline at the pump. Not surprisingly, that very accusation forms part of the basis for this year’s round of hearings.
As it happens, this year’s scenario was set in place by what appeared to be a coordinated media frenzy regarding a fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago involving Donald Trump and some oil and gas industry executives. Although the dinner took place on April 11 and the Washington Post reported on it just 6 days later, the story didn’t become a cause célèbre in the rest of the legacy media until the second week in May. Then it took off, for whatever reason.
That turned out to be perfect timing for Senate Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who sent letters on May 23 to CEOs of 8 “Big Oil” companies, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, under the letterhead of the Senate Finance Committee which Wyden chairs. Setting up a predicate for a hearing to come, the Senators demanded that each company provide information related to the April 11 dinner, and to also provide any draft documents they might have prepared for proposed policy actions in a future Trump administration.
Senators Wyden and Whitehouse demand all this information without irony despite the fact that these kinds of interactions between politicians and their supporters are standard operating procedure in the US political system. They happen all the time, in both parties.
Politico reporter Ben Lefebvre points out that the move by Senators Wyden and Whitehouse is just the latest in a series of inquiries targeting the oil and gas industry launched by congressional Democrats in recent weeks as the campaign season heats up.
“Democrats have upped the political ante against the industry just as oil company executives have started opening their wallets to back Trump’s campaign against President Joe Biden,” Lefebvre adds.
Meanwhile, over on the House side of Capitol Hill, New Jersey Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone, ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter on May 21 to the CEOs of 7 oil and gas companies that suggests collusion with the OPEC+ cartel to fix US gas prices.
“If US oil companies are colluding with each other and foreign cartels to manipulate global oil markets and harm American consumers who then pay more at the pump, Congress and the American people deserve to know,” Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, wrote in his letter.
Pallone cites “recent revelations from a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Company, who allegedly attempted to illegally coordinate crude oil production levels with OPEC and his competitors in order to drive up prices at the pump and rake in additional profits.”
In fact however the FTC allegations are not based on anything more than Sheffield’s public statements in which at certain times he has argued against new supplies of oil. The Wall Street Journal, in an op-ed from its editorial board, describes the FTC’s statement – and accompanying remarks by its chair Lina Khan – as a “smear” based on “dubious evidence”.
In a response to the FTC sent on May 28, Sheffield categorically denies Khan’s allegations, calling them “deeply troubling.” Specific to the FTC’s accusation that he conspired with OPEC+ and other producers to limit production, Sheffield points to the role he played in “expanding US oil production over the last few decades,” adding that the FTC “ignores the times when he said that OPEC should increase production, that the oil shale revolution saved the United States and the world from $150 per barrel of oil, and that the Administration should lift restrictions on US drilling activity to allow for increased production.”
Pioneer, as the largest leaseholder and driller in the prolific Permian Basin, played a lead role in raising that region’s production to record levels in recent years. Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes Media, weighed in on his X account, pointing out that “Biden’s FTC even admitted the US’s producers have led the world in production gains in recent years.”
Indeed, as I have pointed out in these pages before, the US is now producing more oil and gas than any nation ever has – production which has played a key part in helping Europe and other places resist Vladimir Putin’s energy warfare, among other things. The idea that US-based “Big Oil” in general or Pioneer (now part of ExxonMobil) in particular is in league with inimical foreign powers to restrict supplies against US interests is laughable.
No, what we’re seeing here is simply the standard, perennial line in the Democratic Party’s playbook demanding that show trial hearings targeting Big Oil should begin at this stage in the electoral cycle. It’s an incredibly tiresome box they feel the need to check, so here we go.
David Blackmon had a 40 year career in the US energy industry, the last 23 years of which were spent in the public policy arena, managing regulatory and legislative issues for various companies. He continues to write and podcast on energy matters
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