The last time the CEOs of the major oil companies were on the Hill for a Senate hearing, it didn’t go well. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing over escalating energy prices, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) asked the five CEOs if their company, or any of its representatives, participated in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. They said they hadn’t, which became a tad controversial when a White House document surfaced showing the opposite is true.
So now that the Senate has some new questions for the oil companies, executives have a new strategy: stay away from the Hill.
A day after President Bush declared America is “addicted” to oil, big oil execs thumbed their nose at a Senate hearing called yesterday to grill them about their record profits. […]
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was called to weigh the impact on prices of the oil industry’s consolidation to just a handful of companies.
One of those companies, ExxonMobil, reported last week profits of $36 billion last year, the most ever by any U.S. company. But the execs begged off, saying they were busy.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) responded, “If we need to issue subpoenas, we can do that.”
Any time now Arlen….