Nick Snow
Washington Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, May 22 -- A US Senate committee brought five major oil company executives back to Congress for the second time in less than 2 months so it could ask what's causing record high crude oil and gasoline prices.
The nationwide average retail gasoline price has more than doubled since George W. Bush became president, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahey said as he opened a hearing on oil prices.
"The president once boasted that with his pals in the oil industry, he would be able to keep prices low, and consumers would benefit. Instead, it is his pals in the oil industry who have benefited. American consumers, and the American economy, have suffered immensely," Leahey charged.
He said he wanted to hear from the witnesses about forces beyond supply and demand which have driven crude oil prices higher, whether to give the US Department of Justice authority to prosecute foreign oil supplies for violating US antitrust laws, and methods to reduce speculation in oil futures.
"This committee and the Congress need answers so that we can act in a way the administration will not: for the benefit of consumers, for American families and small businesses. We need to get prices under control and back to competitive levels, and we need to do it now," Leahey declared.
Robert A. Malone, chairman and president of BP America Inc.; John D. Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co.; Peter J. Robertson, vice-chairman of Chevron Corp.; John E. Lowe, executive vice-president of ConocoPhillips Co., and J. Stephen Simon, executive vice-president of Exxon Mobil Corp., submitted written testimony similar to their submissions to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on Apr. 1.
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