This year’s scenario seems to have been set by the orchestrated media frenzy surrounding a fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago attended by Donald Trump and oil and gas executives. The dinner took place on April 11th. The Washington Post Since it broke just six days later, the story didn’t gain traction in other traditional media outlets until the second week of May, after which it became a talking point for some reason.
That was perfect timing for Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who on May 23 sent a letter on the stationery of the Senate Finance Committee, which Wyden chairs, to the CEOs of eight “big oil companies” and the American Petroleum Institute. As a prerequisite for future hearings, the senators requested that the companies provide information about the April 11 dinner and any draft documents they may be preparing for proposed policy actions of a future Trump Administration.
Senators Wyden and Whitehouse are requesting all of this information without any hint of irony, even though such exchanges between politicians and their supporters are standard procedure in the American political system and occur frequently across both parties.
Politico reporter Ben Lefebvre noted that Wyden and Whitehouse’s move is just the latest in a series of investigations targeted at the oil and gas industry by Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks as the election heats up.
“Democrats are raising the political stakes against the oil industry just as oil company executives are beginning to loosen their purse strings to support the Trump campaign against President Joe Biden,” Lefebvre added.
Meanwhile, on the House side of Congress, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the ranking minority member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter on May 21 to the CEOs of seven oil and gas companies suggesting that they were conspiring with the OPEC+ cartel to fix U.S. gas prices.
“If U.S. oil companies are conspiring with each other and with foreign oil cartels to manipulate global oil markets to the detriment of American consumers who pay higher prices at the pump, Congress and the American people have a right to know,” Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, wrote in the letter.
Pallone cited “the recent Federal Trade Commission investigation into Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Company, for allegations that he illegally coordinated oil production with OPEC and its competitors in order to inflate gasoline prices and increase profits.”
But in reality, the FTC’s allegations are based on little more than Sheffield’s public statements that he opposed new oil supplies at certain times. The Wall Street JournalIn an editorial, the publication called the FTC’s statement and accompanying comments from Chair Lina Khan a “smear campaign” based on “questionable evidence.”
