[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 63 (Friday, May 19, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S4834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         OIL INDUSTRY MERGER ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 2006

  Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I join Senator Kohl as sponsor of the 
Oil Industry Merger Antitrust Enforcement Act. This bill will make it 
significantly more difficult for oil companies to merge, and should 
help put an end to the record energy prices that continue to burden 
America's consumers and businesses.
  As we all know, these high fuel costs are affecting every family, and 
they show no sign of coming back down. We must continue our efforts to 
do something about it. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, 
Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, I have been working for years 
to combat the problem of higher energy prices. Along with Senator Kohl, 
I have championed legislation to make it clear that that the Department 
of Justice has the legal authority to prosecute OPEC for its price 
fixing of crude oil prices. As we all know, the biggest part of our gas 
prices is the price of crude oil, and the only way we can restore 
competition in the market for crude oil is to fight against OPEC's 
blatantly illegal and anticompetitive conspiracy to fix prices of this 
crucial commodity.
  I have also asked the Federal Trade Commission to monitor gasoline 
prices to make sure that consumers are not subject to price gouging or 
illegal price manipulation, and in response to that request the FTC has 
instituted an ongoing project to monitor gasoline prices in 360 markets 
across the Nation, including 12 in my home State of Ohio.
  Further, the Judiciary Committee has held two hearings addressing the 
causes of higher fuel prices in recent months, and last month I joined 
with Chairman Specter and Senators Kohl, Leahy, Feinstein, and Durbin, 
to sponsor legislation which prevents oil companies from unfairly 
manipulating the supply of oil in order to artificially raise prices, 
and also calls for investigations into how effective enforcement of oil 
mergers has been, whether past mergers need to be revisited, and 
whether the enforcement agencies need new standards for reviewing oil 
industry mergers. That legislation also creates a Joint Federal and 
State Task force to investigate information sharing in the oil industry 
that may lead to artificially high prices for gasoline, electricity, 
and heating oil. Perhaps most important, it provides a ``NOPEC'' 
provision like the one that Senator Kohl and I have sponsored in the 
past, which enables Justice to prosecute the illegal OPEC cartel.
  While all these efforts are steps in the right direction, we continue 
to see increasing fuel costs, and one likely reason is the ongoing 
consolidation in the oil industry. And, as our energy needs increase 
and as oil gets harder and more expensive to find and produce, it seems 
likely that this consolidation will continue. Therefore, we need to 
continue our efforts to maintain competition in this industry, and by 
making it more difficult for oil companies to merge, this legislation 
provides a different and useful approach for keeping these companies 
independent and maintaining the competition that still exists.
  Specifically, this bill changes the burden of proof in cases alleging 
illegal mergers, so that oil companies that want to merge must prove 
that their merger will not harm consumers. In addition, this bill 
requires the antitrust agencies to specifically consider the unique 
conditions of the petroleum market when evaluating these mergers, in 
order to assure that when reviewing proposed mergers the agencies are 
focusing on the potential dangers of oil industry mergers. These 
changes, taken together, will make sure that only pro-competitive 
mergers are allowed, and will help protect consumers and businesses 
from higher energy prices.
  We still have many challenges to face in our ongoing efforts to 
combat high energy prices, but this bill will make a difference and I 
strongly encourage my colleagues to join in support of its passage.

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