At a press briefing yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) slammed big oil companies.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 And I'm glad to be from New York.
00:02 And I shouldn't have worn my light gray suit because it shows the rain.
00:07 But other than that, I'm very happy to be here.
00:09 And I want to thank our great leaders.
00:12 I want to thank Senator Markey.
00:14 I want to thank Senator Whitehouse.
00:16 I want to thank our two great members of the House, Joe Neguse and Representative Kamala Dove.
00:22 And I hear that Rep. Barragan is coming, but I don't see her, but she's coming, too.
00:27 Okay, and I also want to thank Climate Power and LCV for bringing us here together today.
00:33 You know, Senators Markey and Whitehouse are two of the greatest climate champs that this country has ever seen,
00:39 not just in the Senate, but that the country has ever seen.
00:42 And they work very hard to expose the misinformation of big oil companies.
00:47 And our House members have been great leaders on this issue as well.
00:52 I want to congratulate Congressman Neguse, who I tried to get to run for the Senate at one point,
00:58 but he's doing very well in the House now.
01:00 It's the first time I'm with him in his new role as whatever it's called.
01:05 Okay.
01:08 Chief Whip, Deputy Whip, I don't know.
01:11 I work for you.
01:12 Thank you. Thank you.
01:13 All right, well, today we're here to discuss a tale as old as time.
01:18 You've heard it before.
01:20 Big oil companies basking in record profits while hardworking Americans feel the pinch of high prices at the pump.
01:27 Instead of working to lower gas prices for Americans ahead of a busy Memorial Day weekend,
01:33 big oil company executives are huddling to find ways to keep prices high and keep their profits soaring.
01:41 And one of the ways big oil companies spend their time these days is cozying up to Donald Trump,
01:47 who, as we all know, is no enemy to big oil.
01:51 The Washington Post account was extremely disturbing.
01:54 It's a doozy.
01:55 Donald Trump holds a meeting with the big oil executives at Mar-a-Lago, and he promises big oil executives
02:02 he'll gut the Democrats' clean energy wins in exchange for a billion dollars for his re-election efforts.
02:08 That is sickening.
02:10 And it's sickening that Donald Trump would do it, and then he's proud of it.
02:14 He's proud of ruining our planet and helping these big oil companies.
02:19 Big oil's greediness doesn't stop, of course, with Donald Trump.
02:23 A recent report showed they're among the biggest perpetrators of stock buybacks.
02:28 So here, you know, even their claim that they need to pump more oil, which we despise, is false
02:34 because they'd rather, most of all, give the money to their stockholders.
02:38 And that's where the money's going.
02:41 If they were smart and they wanted a future for themselves, they'd take that money and start putting it into clean energy,
02:48 as lots of smart business people are doing, and it's being very successful.
02:52 When we put in the IRA $369 billion for clean power, that was what we thought it would be.
03:00 It's a trillion going on two trillion.
03:02 It's so popular.
03:03 So this is something that where both capitalism and green energy, a good climate, a good globe, can mix,
03:13 if anyone's forward-thinking, but the big oil companies are always looking backwards.
03:17 And that's to their detriment and America's detriment.
03:20 Stock buybacks aren't good for the economy.
03:23 They're not good for workers.
03:25 They're not good for anybody except the big oil executives and their wealthy shareholders.
03:30 So that's no good.
03:33 But it doesn't stop there.
03:35 Back in the fall, ExxonMobil proposed a $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources.
03:41 Chevron proposed a $53 billion acquisition of Hess Oil, two of the biggest petroleum deals in American history,
03:49 two of the biggest deals of the 21st century.
03:52 These proposed acquisitions could be disastrous for consumers.
03:56 So I joined, I sent a letter, I led a letter with two dozen colleagues calling for the FTC to investigate.
04:04 And, you know, one of the great mistakes, and this one was a Democratic mistake,
04:08 under the Clinton administration they allowed Exxon to merge with Mobil, they allowed Chevron to merge with Texaco,
04:14 and what was the result? Higher oil prices and less competition.
04:18 We introduced you already.
04:23 So that was a disgrace, and now they're trying to do it again.
04:27 Now, so next week I'll be sending a letter to DOJ, calling on them to investigate and prosecute collusion and price fixing
04:36 that may have increased gasoline, fuel, and energy costs,
04:40 based on the report done by the FTC when they unfortunately allowed Mobil to merge with Pioneer,
04:48 which I thought was a bad idea.
04:50 The federal government must use every tool at our disposal to investigate the oil industry,
04:55 hold accountable liable actors, end illegal activities.
05:00 There's something wrong, very wrong, when big oil companies rake in the cash
05:05 by polluting the atmosphere and at the expense of the American people.
05:10 So we Democrats are going to keep working to shine the spotlight on big oil and hold them accountable.
05:16 And I thank again all of our leaders who got here together to talk about this issue. Thank you.
05:21 [applause]
05:22 Now I'd like to call on the great Sheldon Whitehouse, one of our great--this guy cares so much about climate.
05:29 He spent one of his whole vacations going to garden clubs in the South
05:33 to convince the garden clubs to be pro-environment, pro-green.
05:39 [no audio]
05:46 [no audio]