Oil execs refuse to testify at U.S. Senate hearing - Yahoo! News
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is holding the hearing on Wednesday morning, said it asked representatives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Valero Energy and the U.S. units of BP and Royal Dutch Shell to tell their side of the story.
“All declined the invitation to testify,” the committee said in a statement on Monday, without providing details.
Instead of a subpoena, they were kindly invited to tell Americans how we’re getting screwed at the pump. What are they afraid of? It’s not like they’ll be required to swear in and testify under oath.
Of course, most companies don’t want to tell how they profitted more “than the economies of 125 countries.” Especially when regular folks are collecting pennies to put gas in their cars to go to a job where they’re lucky to work, but unlikely to get a raise to cover the ever increasing cost of the gasoline they need to get to work.(that was intentionally run-on)
And yet these companies need tax breaks to cover their “losses” from Katrina. $36.1 billion doesn’t seem so bad after such devasting losses, I think. Don’t tell that to the Bush Administration, who will entertain the idea that it could be economically feasible to give those tax breaks. Afterall, prices are supposed to dip- I mean rise- to only $3 a gallon this summer. We certainly don’t want those companies to suffer like we do. We should be generous and understanding just like our good president is- at least to those with a lot of money. He’s lucky though, he doesn’t have to pay for the gas that goes into his private (but publicly owned) air fleet, or fleet of SUVS that carry his carcass around to his various love fests.
There’s not much that’s going to be done about it though. Not until more people are forced to walk, ride a bike or carpool. That’s when they’ll really see a cut in their profits. And maybe when the constituents of the Congressmen who asked so nicely for an interview get fed up because they can’t drive they’ll call for some heads on a platter.
Maybe then these oil companies will get a subpoena instead and then be expected to actually testify under oath. One can only hope….
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