Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) issued the following statement today praising President Biden’s announcement that he will release one million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the next six months to provide relief to Americans facing high gas prices as a result of Big Oil’s corporate greed and Putin’s unprovoked Ukraine invasion:
“I commend President Biden for taking decisive, historic action to combat rising gas prices and help provide the American people much needed relief at the pump. By releasing one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the President is doing what the fossil fuel industry won’t: providing the market with more supply to meet growing demand.
“This bold action must now be met in kind by oil companies, who have so far chosen only to profiteer off Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Rather than increasing production, the fossil fuel industry has been content to keep supply artificially low so that prices – and profits – remain intentionally high. It’s time for them to stop sitting on their hands while families suffer – all for the sake of their shareholders. At the same time, it has never before been clearer that our security depends on a swift transition to clean energy so that we can become energy independent and break free from our captivity to the unpredictable oil market once and for all.”
On Tuesday, Chairman Pallone announced an April 6 Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing with six oil company executives on their businesses practices and the fossil fuel industry’s role in rising gas prices.
The hearing follows a letter Pallone sent to the six oil and gas companies earlier this month expressing concern that the industry is taking advantage of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and global market shocks to keep prices high and increase their own profits.
Original source can be found here.
