House Passes Bill to Crack Down on OPEC
Press Release
Today, Congressman Mike Michaud joined a majority of his colleagues in voting to pass H.R. 6074, the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008, which will bolster antitrust enforcement in the petroleum industry.
"Gas prices are through the roof right now. There are many causes for the increased prices of gasoline and Congress cannot address all of them," said Michaud. "But one thing Congress can do is make sure that the prices paid by Americans for fuel is not the result of anticompetitive practices."
In May of last year, the House passed H.R. 2264, the "No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act" (NOPEC) by a vote of 345-72. That bill would give U.S. authorities the ability to prosecute anticompetitive conduct committed by international cartels that restrict supply and drive up prices. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the world's most well known oil cartel, accounts for more than two-thirds of global oil production, and OPEC's oil exports represent about 65 percent of the oil traded internationally. The conduct of the OPEC members is currently beyond the reach of federal prosecutors. NOPEC addressed legal barriers to prosecution by removing sovereign immunities and by bringing the conduct of international oil cartels within the reach of the U.S. antitrust laws.
H.R. 6074, the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008 builds on NOPEC by incorporating the NOPEC provisions as passed last year and authorizing the creation of the Department of Justice Petroleum Industry Antitrust Task Force. Among its responsibilities, the Task Force will examine such issues as the existence and effects of price gouging in the sale of gasoline, anticompetitive price discrimination by petroleum refiners, unilateral actions to withhold supply in order to inflate the prices, and manipulation in futures markets. H.R. 6074 also requests a Government Accountability Office study regarding the effects on competition of prior mergers and ordered divestitures in the petroleum industry.
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