{"id":5788,"date":"2005-11-09T12:59:47","date_gmt":"2005-11-09T17:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5788"},"modified":"2005-11-09T12:59:47","modified_gmt":"2005-11-09T17:59:47","slug":"whos-afraid-of-a-big-bad-oath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/whos-afraid-of-a-big-bad-oath\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s afraid of a big, bad oath?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, executives from the oil industry announced unprecedented windfall profits<\/a>. Exxon Mobil announced that its third-quarter net income jumped 75%, to $9.92 billion. Its profit in the first nine months of this year — $25.42 billion — already equals its full-year earnings for 2004, and the company’s sales are expected to exceed those of Wal-Mart. Royal Dutch Shell reported a jump in profits to $9.03 billion; Chevron posted a $4 billion profit.<\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers, most of whom recently backed an energy bill that offered the industry more taxpayer subsidies and tax breaks<\/a>, are starting to wonder if they might suffer politically for siding with an industry that’s charging Americans considerably more for energy while enjoying obscene profits. Given the circumstances, that’s probably a good idea.<\/p>\n

The concerns prompted the Senate Commerce Committee, led by industry ally Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), to hold a hearing, asking CEOs from the nation’s biggest oil companies to explain themselves. For some reason, however, Stevens didn’t want the executives to be under oath<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens rejected calls by some Democrats to have the executives sworn in, saying the law already required them to tell the truth.<\/p>\n

“There is nothing in the standing rules to require that witnesses be sworn,” the Alaska Republican said. “These witnesses accepted the invitation to appear before the committee voluntarily. I shall not administer an oath today.”<\/p>\n

Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii and the ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said the CEOs should want to testify under oath.<\/p>\n

“If I were a witness I would prefer to be sworn in so the public knows what I was about to say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” he said. “If I were a witness I would demand to be take the oath.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve been to dozens of Hill hearings and I’ve never seen a committee chairman decide to skip the swearing in process, especially for high-profile witnesses. For a hearing like this one, that’s generating media interest, it’s a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

This is just bizarre. Stevens’ explanation makes even less sense. If the law already requires witnesses to tell the truth to Congress, then why would any committee ever swear in a witness?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, executives from the oil industry announced unprecedented windfall profits. Exxon Mobil announced that its third-quarter net income jumped 75%, to $9.92 billion. Its profit in the first nine months of this year — $25.42 billion — already equals its full-year earnings for 2004, and the company’s sales are expected to exceed those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}