Biden asks FTC to probe energy firms over gasoline prices

United States President Joe Biden asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to “immediately” investigate “mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies.”

The agency should look into any potentially illegal moves by the energy firms as “gasoline prices at the pump remain high, even though oil and gas companies’ costs are declining,” Biden wrote in a letter sent to FTC Chair Lina Khan on Wednesday. The “unexplained” and “large” discrepancy between prices of unfinished gasoline and its average prices at the pump significantly exceeds “the pre-pandemic average,” he also noted.

Biden pointed out that the two biggest oil and gas companies by market cap, without singling them out by their names, “are on track to nearly double their net income over 2019 – the last full year before the pandemic” and that “they have announced plans to engage in billions of dollars of stock buybacks and dividends this year or next.” Exxon Mobil Corporation and Chevron Corporation are the two largest US energy companies, according to market cap data.

Breaking the News / MS