Pelosi Pushes Democratic Bill That Would Give Biden Power To Control Gas Prices

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) blamed the continued record surge in gas prices on “exploitation” by oil companies, and touted a bill that would essentially allow the president to control prices.

During her weekly press briefing, Pelosi touted a Democrat-backed bill called the “Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act,” which would allow the president to declare an “energy emergency” giving him the ability to regulate prices by preventing fuel companies from selling their products at prices deemed to be “unconscionably excessive” and “exploiting” such an emergency.

“Next week on the floor of the House, we will have another piece of our lowering-costs-for-the-American-people legislation,” Pelosi said. “House Democrats, led by [Washington] Congresswoman [Kim] Schrier and [California] Congresswoman [Katie] Porter introduced the ‘Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act.’ While families are struggling to pay higher prices at the pump, oil and gas companies are recording record profits, with [the] seven largest oil companies announcing buybacks that could total $41 billion this year alone. Again and again, we see gas prices rise, sometimes when the cost of oil drops, oil prices drop, and price gouging needs to be stopped. This is a major exploitation of the consumer because this is a product that the consumer must have.”

“Again, the Putin [Price] Hike at the pump is a part of this,” Pelosi continued. “You would think that the oil companies would compensate for that rather than exploit the opportunity that it — so in this bill, what this bill does [is] — price gouging needs to be addressed, including new tools at the [Federal Trade Commission] to address those abuses. Our bill enables the president to issue an energy emergency declaration making it unlawful to increase gas and home energy prices in an exploitative and excessive way, which is part of the business plan of these companies.” – READ MORE