Juan Gonzales (NY Daily News): Big Oil fan after little man

[brooklynite]

Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, launched a bizarre investigation last week into possible antitrust violations by a major oil company.

You will be surprised to learn that Barton, one of the top recipients in Congress of campaign donations from the energy industry, is not probing whether ExxonMobil or Chevron or any of the other oil giants engaged in price gouging when gasoline and heating oil costs skyrocketed the past few years.

No, the good congressman has set his sights on the only oil company that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest Americans.

In a Feb. 15 letter to Citgo, the Houston-based company owned by the Venezuelan government, Barton demanded that company officials produce by tomorrow all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/393825p-333918c.html

[RufusEarl]

1. Why does this not surprise me!

[ovidsen]

2. I demand a similar probe of "big drugs"

It's clear that programs initiated by the giant pharmaceutical firms to help low income patients is clearly meant to subvert the free market and harm competitors through unsustainable price cuts.

http://www.needymeds.com/

It's obvious, isn't it?