Date: 2025-07-02 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021878
US POLITICS
ENERGY
VIDEO ... Senate Hearing on Energy market disruption associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine
ENERGY
VIDEO ... Senate Hearing on Energy market disruption associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Burgess COMMENTARY
I get the impression that these hearings are incredibly time consuming and more spectacle than substance. Some of the Senators are well informed and committed to getting the most they can from the process, but there are others who are merely grandstanding and repeating their party's talking points. Some of the witnesses are very well informed ... others not so much.
In the case of this hearing on energy and the impact of gas prices on inflation the witnesses from the oil industry avoided all the probing about the underlying reason for record profits for the industry and the primacy of stockholder profit over the industry's customers.
I was impressed by Senator King and Senator Warren, both of who asked key questions related to profit performance versus the industry's role in cost effective energy supply. I was irritated by several Republican Senators that tried to argue that it was entirely the fault of Presiddent Biden and the current administration that there was energy inflation. Their arguments were at the level of the Third Grade in elementary school ... good for politicking but useless for policy
Peter Burgess
