(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Skyrocketing gas prices have Democrats hoping they can use the Biden-created crisis to impose price controls on gasoline, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act (HR 7688) was announced by Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a May 12 press conference.
PELOSI: “Price gouging needs to be stopped…the Putin tax cut hike at the pump is part of this.” pic.twitter.com/wV0fnTKdAf
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 12, 2022
“While families are struggling to pay higher prices at the pump, oil and gas companies are recording record profits,” Pelosi said.
“Again and again, we see gas prices rise, sometimes when the cost of oil goes – drops – oil prices drop, and price gouging needs to be stopped,” Pelosi declared.
The bill was introduced into the House by Reps. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., and Katie Porter, D-Calif., on May 6.
According to its text, the bill would give the president the power to use an “energy emergency proclamation” to ban the sale of “consumer fuel” at an “unconscionably excessive” price.
A price increase would be “unconscionable” when it is determined that “the seller is exploiting the circumstances related to an energy emergency to increase prices unreasonably.”
Or, as Pelosi put it, “our bill [would make] it unlawful to increase gas and home energy prices in an exploitive and excessive way, which is part of the business plan of these companies.”
Political commentator Ed Morrisey criticized the Democrats desperate attempt to deflect blame for the country’s energy crisis.
“Price controls . . . artificially cap prices to a point where producers and retailers can’t profit off of their work,” Morrisey wrote. “Production inevitably falls off, which then requires sharp rationing of shortage resources.”
“This is nothing more than a stunt to back up Democrats’ attempts to shift the blame for inflation from Biden’s policies to corporate greed,” Morrissey continued.
The increasingly hysterical Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for one, has received the memo that what White press secretary Jen Psaki has called “business decisions” are responsible for the crisis.
The prices Americans are paying for groceries and other essentials are at all-time highs. One of the reasons?
Giant corporations are price gouging & reaping record profits. We need to put a stop to corporate gouging that drives up prices for families.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 11, 2022
“Giant corporations are price gouging & reaping record profits,” Warren wrote on Twitter. “We need to put a stop to corporate gouging that drives up prices for families.”
