Congressman David McKinley, R-W.Va., was among the participants in a hearing with the chiefs of some of America’s largest energy producers. The hearing was called “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.”

 

“Surely this committee recognizes that the gas prices are set at the global market and are markedly influenced by domestic regulations,” McKinley said during a subcommittee hearing of the House Energy and Resource Committee.

 

The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.164 today, according to AAA. A month ago, the average price nationally was $4.009. A year ago, the average cost was $2.872.

 

In West Virginia, the average cost for a gallon of regular was $4.046. A month ago, it was $3.825. A year ago, the average price for a gallon of regular in West Virginia was $2.757.

 

The prices, which were already on the rise, spiked after energy-rich Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

Average prices for a barrel of crude oil hit a high of $138 a barrel in early March. Prices have fallen somewhat since then, now at a little more than a hundred dollars a barrel.

 

During today’s House subcommittee meeting, Democrats grilled the energy company executives on whether performance for stockholders has been an incentive to keep gasoline prices high despite the recently dropping cost for barrels of oil.

 

“The price of oil alone is not what is alarming most of us on this panel; it’s the price at the pump,” said Congresswoman Diana DeGette, D-Colo., the chairwoman of the subcommittee.

 

“If the price of gas is driven by the global market, why is the price of oil coming down but the price at the pump is still near record highs? If it’s an issue of supply and demand, wouldn’t that be reflected in the global price of oil as well? Something just doesn’t add up.”

 

Republicans, in turn, blamed the Biden administration’s policies for suppressing American output.

 

“Since our goal is to lower gas prices at the pump for Americans, we must stop overregulating,” McKinley said, citing a federal leasing moratorium, slowing down a leasing process, policies of the Federal Reserve and halted work on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

 

“No wonder the market is nervous and gas prices have increased. Remember, our goal is to lower gas prices at the pump for Americans. Increasing regulations will have the opposite effect.”

 

McKinley directed questions at one of the panelists, former U.S. Army General H.R. McMaster, now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He asked about two major pipelines that would have crossed West Virginia toward eastern markets, the now-defunct Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the long-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline.

 

“If they had been completed would that have made energy costs in America more likely to have decreased?” McKinley asked.

 

“Yes,” responded McMaster, former National Security Adviser in the Trump administration. “And also, just made the supply much more secure and accessible.”

 

In a separate hearing of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Shelley Moore Capito asked officials with the Environmental Protection Agency about the effects of regulation on domestic energy production. Capito is the committee’s ranking member.

 

“In particular, it seems like we are witnessing a whole-of-government focus on killing domestic energy production,” Capito, R-W.Va., said during a budget hearing for the EPA.

 

“An effort that has become increasingly hard to understand, I believe — particularly as we see what’s going on globally — as the political winds blow against policies that would make us and our allies less energy secure and contribute further to near-record inflation, particularly for gasoline.”