Senators grill oil company execs over huge profits...
 

The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned major oil company CEOs over record profits today:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24757944/

"But senators complained the executives were trying to come across as “hapless victims” while raking in record profits. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $60 or more to fill up a car’s gas tank.

“Where is the corporate conscience?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked.

“People we represent are hurting, the companies you represent are profiting,” (Sen) Leahy told the executives. He said there’s a “disconnect” between legitimate supply issues and the oil and gasoline prices motorists are seeing."

I wonder if anything will come of the hearings this time. It's the second time this year the executives have been called to testify.

Reminds me of when Big Tabaco was in the same seats.
"How much money did you make last year? the Vermont Democrat asked the top executives of the country’s five biggest oil companies. They had been summoned to a Senate hearing to explain the extraordinarily high cost of oil and gasoline and their companies’ profits.
Three executives said their compensation was in the millions. Two said they didn’t know."

This coming from the same woman who relentlessly crusades in California against finding and producing oil and gas.....something that would help the very situation that she is griping about.

What are they expecting these oil execs to say? It is all about supply and demand. That's about as brutally honest as it gets.

Where is the corporate conscience? Well, Mr. Durbin......where's the common sense my friend?

Dick Durbin is such a POS. This is blatant pandering to the ignorance of the American people (who think the oil companies are involved in some scheme to drive up prices).

Count me in shinerbock!

I cannot beleive when they said they make .04 cents a gallon how in the hell they make BILLIONs in profits.

They are given Federal tax breaks for exploration and building new refineries. When was the last one built?

One in Arkansas City, Ks. was dismantled so as not to sell it to buyers.

But as one pundant said, it takes 15 years to get through the EPA paper work and the I do not want it in my back yard mentality.

This is really the issue, for me - why are we grilling dudes about making an asston of money? Seriously - if the Senate wants to rein in oil profits, they're going to have to do it with legislation, not some sort of pseudo-moral pandering against capitalism.

The very fact that they'd prefer a dog-and-pony show to actually taking action should show you exactly what this is: playing to the public to no effect, other than soapbox moments to be replayed during the next election cycle. It sucks.

"Record profits" . . . why don't we bring in people who drive Hummers and discuss "record consumption" while we're at it?

I wish someone in Congress would recognize that there is a difference between profits and a profit margin....

Or we could talk to Microsoft, a company whose profits have been increasing at about twice the rate of the oil companies.

Truth - when you have a legit monopoly (not just some sort of quasi-oligarchy board-sharing arrangement) and can shrug off settlements in the hundred-million-plus range in literally every state in the union . . . I mean . . .

Since I don't know too much about economics, has the supply really dipped down or has demand shot through the roof?

Your point is valid, but you don't have to fill your car up with microsoft to get to and from work. Maybe they should be taken to task as well, but that's beside the point here.

Sorry, but profits setting new records every quarter while prices to the consumer skyrocket are a problem in my mind.

What was the first quarter number -- something like $26 Billion?

In the first quarter alone?

How much profit is too much profit?

Microsoft is also in the business of developing newer current products, and is also selling more than one product.

Oil companies sell a very limited array of products and they aren't developing any new products.

Some oil companies spend a lot on R&D to develop alternative fuels. Shell apparently has developed a technique to extract oil deposited in shale formations. It isn't cheap to build offshore drilling rigs.

The oil business isn't wildcatting anymore. It costs a lot of money to find a good well.

This is exactly the type of questions many liberals think government should answer. Very disturbing.