WASHINGTON — On a day when oil prices leaped to unheard-of highs, senators lined up Big Oil’s biggest executives and pummeled them with complaints that they’re pretending to be “hapless victims” while raking in record profits.
“Where is the corporate conscience?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies.
It’s all about economics, came the reply. Supply and demand. The company leaders tried to shift attention from motorists’ anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline to a debate over new areas for drilling.
But senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing would not have any of that. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $60 or more to fill up a car’s gas tank.
“People we represent are hurting; the companies you represent are profiting,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives.
He said there’s a “disconnect” between legitimate supply issues and the oil and gasoline prices motorists are seeing.
Profits have been huge “in absolute terms,” conceded J. Stephen Simon, executive vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp., but they “must be viewed in the context of the massive scale of our industry.” And high earnings “in the current up cycle” are needed for investments in the long term, including when profits will be down.
” ‘Current up cycle’ — that’s a nice term when people can’t afford to go to work” because gasoline is costing so much, replied Leahy with sarcasm.
