Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On His Letter Urging The FTC To Investigate Big Oil Mergers

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding his letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging them to investigate the blockbuster merger between Exxon and Pioneer. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Last November, I wrote to the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, urging them to investigate Exxon’s $60 billion blockbuster merger with Pioneer, one of the largest mergers in the energy industry in two decades. I warned that Exxon’s deal – and Chevron’s announced merger with Hess – had the red flags of anticompetitive behavior. I warned that these deals could open the floodgates to more consolidation, less competition, higher prices – just to pad the profits of the largest oil companies.

It turns out I was right – since last November, there have been at least four multibillion dollar mergers announced among America’s large oil companies. And in all of 2023, there was an astounding $250 billion worth of oil and gas deals.

So today, I authored a letter joined by 50 of my Senate and House Democratic Colleagues in urging the FTC to increase its scrutiny over this wave of oil mergers, to see if they mergers violate antitrust law.

Big oil is alarmingly getting even bigger, and the FTC must investigate for the sake of consumers, workers, and small businesses, because when oligopolistic behavior reins, costs go up and the public pays the price.

History has shown that when America’s largest oil companies go through consolidation, it eventually leads to higher gas prices. According to the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, the five biggest mergers of the 1990s and 2000s led to tangible spikes in prices, particularly the merger between Exxon and Mobil, which I fiercely opposed as a Congressman at that time.

I have always said that one of the great mistakes of the Democratic administration in the 1990s was to allow this merger between Exxon and Mobil, as well as the merger between Chevron and Texaco, because as we saw competition greatly suffered and costs went up for consumers. That’s why I was strongly opposed to these deals back then. When you look back, you say, how the heck did even a Democratic administration allow Exxon and Mobile to merger? Chevron and Texaco to merge? But sadly, history is repeating itself when it comes to oil mergers, although the Biden administration has not been supportive.

And let’s not kid ourselves, these mergers aren’t just about efficiency or lowering costs. These mergers are about buying out the competition so the newly consolidated industry can boost profits at the expense of consumers.

And these profits have become jet fuel, so to speak, for a record wave of stock buybacks and grotesque levels of executive pay. In January 2023, Chevron announced $75 billion in stock buybacks, which will cut the number of shares by as much as 20%. Exxon likewise announced another $35 billion in buybacks [for 2023 and 2024]. These are just two examples of many.

Americans, meanwhile, will continue to feel the sting of Big Oil’s greed every time they go to the pump. That is why we are calling on the FTC to look into this pattern of consolidation announced in recent months, and step in if necessary.

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