By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday to hold energy companies liable if federal regulators find they conspired with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to raise oil prices.
The bill, introduced by Senator Edward Markey and Representative Nanette Barragan, says if an energy company is found by the Federal Trade Commission to have colluded with OPEC, it will no longer be eligible for new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters .
WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND?
In May, the FTC charged this Natural resources pioneer (NYSE:) CEO Scott Sheffield of exchanging hundreds of messages with OPEC officials to artificially inflate oil prices. The US antitrust regulator has approved this ExxonMobil (NYSE:)’s $60 billion purchase of Pioneer, but excluded Sheffield from Exxon’s board.
Sheffield has denied the FTC’s allegations. Exxon, which has since purchased Pioneer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill. But Exxon has said it has submitted more than 1.1 million documents and other information and data to the FTC and that the FTC has raised no concerns about its business practices.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Although the bill has virtually no chance of passage, as Republicans control the House of Representatives and Democrats have only a slim majority in the Senate, it shows that some lawmakers are putting pressure on oil companies.
Last month, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee launched a probe of domestic producers into any efforts to coordinate oil prices with OPEC, in a move the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group, called an “election year stunt.”
Markey’s bill was also co-sponsored by about eleven other left-wing Democrats in the House of Representatives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz and Raul Grijalva.
IMPORTANT QUOTE
Markey said in a statement that the bill is a “first step in ensuring that big oil companies face major consequences when they profit off the backs of hardworking Americans.”
