Historically high gas prices are largely a result of Biden administration policies, not simply Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and other Republican senators said at an April 6 press conference.
“The problem is that the oil is in Louisiana and Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas and North Dakota and Alaska and in many other states, but the dipsticks are in Washington, D.C.,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
The lawmakers held their press conference at the same time as a House hearing, “Gouged at the Gas Pump: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump,” in which executives at ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and other energy companies were grilled while trying to defend their industry—an event that Sen. Daniel Sullivan (R-Alaska) likened to a show trial.
He said that a House hearing six months earlier had seen lawmakers go so far as to suggest that oil and gas companies produce less—a stark contrast to the April 6 event, during which House Energy & Commerce Chair Frank Pallone claimed that those firms’ profits “are coming at the expense of the American people, who need you to dramatically increase production, not shareholder wealth.”
Sullivan encouraged reporters to check the transcripts of the previous hearing.
“Are you embarrassed as an American company that your production is going up while the European counterparts are going down?” Khanna asked.
“Congressman, as we have already heard, demand for energy is going up in the world,” Wirth responded.
Khanna questioned ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods along similar lines.
“Could you commit to lowering production, or not?” he asked at the time.
“We are going to lower emissions, which is the source of the issue that we are trying to address,” Woods said.
‘I Did That!’
At the April 6 press conference, Sullivan held up a photo of a gas pump reading $109.44, which he said was taken when he filled his gas tank. Next to the display was an “I Did That!” protest sticker with a photo of the president pointing at the prices.“Nobody’s being fooled,” he said. “This is what literally was on the pump in my home state.”
Lankford and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) criticized the Biden administration for its decision to tap the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
On March 31, Biden announced that an average of 1 million barrels per day over 180 days would be released from the reserve. The effort, which the administration described as countering “Putin’s Price Hike,” marks the largest-ever release from the SPR.
“It doesn’t actually produce one more barrel of American oil,” Barrasso said.
“Some people call this release a gimmick—I’d say it’s much more dangerous than that. And the reason is because he’s drawing this emergency supply down to a level ... we haven’t been down that low since 1984.”
The idea of a gas tax holiday drew criticism from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Under consideration by the Senate, such a moratorium has already been implemented by Georgia, Maryland, and Connecticut at the state level.
“That denies us access to the funds that are necessary to build roads and bridges,” he said.
Lankford took issue with the Biden administration’s frequent assertion that the oil industry has 9,000 unused leases through which they can step up production, saying that it misrepresents the realities of energy production.
“Most of those are checkerboards, where they lease just one section and test it out. But they’re not really going to do production in that area until they have all the leases around it—he [Biden] knows the game on that,” Lankford said.
Cruz spoke even more forcefully, arguing that high gas prices are the intended result of Biden’s promises on the campaign trail, which included an end to drilling on federal lands or waters.
While the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management did hold a federal offshore lease sale in November, a federal judge threw out that sale in January.
“This is Biden’s fault, and the American people are hurting every day at the gas pump,” he said.
One reporter asked whether laying the blame at Biden’s feet exaggerated the president’s role, given the effects of the pandemic recovery on the oil supply and labor.
“There’s no doubt there are a lot of factors that affect gas prices, and many of those factors have been exacerbated by the Biden administration,” Cruz said, citing the effects of vaccine mandates on truck drivers and longshoremen.
