{"id":7224,"date":"2006-04-24T13:08:13","date_gmt":"2006-04-24T17:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7224"},"modified":"2006-04-24T13:08:13","modified_gmt":"2006-04-24T17:08:13","slug":"guess-who-wants-to-get-tough-with-big-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/guess-who-wants-to-get-tough-with-big-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Guess who wants to get tough with Big Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

How worried are [tag]Republicans[\/tag] about [tag]gas prices[\/tag] becoming yet another election-year hurdle? According to a report in Roll Call<\/a> today, they’re approaching panic.<\/p>\n

House and Senate GOP leaders will ask the [tag]Bush[\/tag] administration to launch a formal investigation into the cause of soaring gas prices this week as part of a renewed push by Republicans to refocus attention on the party’s economic and social agenda in the next three months. […]<\/p>\n

[Bill Frist] informed his colleagues that he and Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) would this week “ask the president early next week to direct the [Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice] to investigate whether a) price gouging, or b) speculation in the oil markets are contributing to the current high prices” adding that the Senate next month will take up both short- and long-term proposals to ease gas prices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, Sen. [tag]Arlen Specter[\/tag] (R-Pa.) is talking up<\/a> a “[tag]windfall tax[\/tag]” for oil companies.<\/p>\n

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers at the gas pump.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps the funniest part is hearing congressional Republicans complain<\/a> about [tag]Exxon Mobil[\/tag] CEO [tag]Lee Raymond[\/tag] receiving nearly a half-billion dollars in compensation last year.<\/p>\n

“The Speaker is extremely concerned with exorbitant retirement packages given to oil company CEOs while that money could be put into increasing refining capacity,” said Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wait a sec. We’re supposed to believe that congressional Republicans are worried about cracking down on oil executives who make too much money? That they’re ready to raise taxes<\/i> on oil companies with too much profit?<\/p>\n

Please. As Kevin recently noted<\/a>, Exxon Mobil was the largest campaign contributor in the Oil & Gas sector during the 2004 election cycle — and 89% of their contributions went to the GOP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Americans may want political leaders who are willing to stand up to the oil companies, but if Republicans think they can fit the bill, they’re crazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How worried are [tag]Republicans[\/tag] about [tag]gas prices[\/tag] becoming yet another election-year hurdle? According to a report in Roll Call today, they’re approaching panic. House and Senate GOP leaders will ask the [tag]Bush[\/tag] administration to launch a formal investigation into the cause of soaring gas prices this week as part of a renewed push by Republicans […]<\/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-7224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224","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=7224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}