A House Republican appeared to take a page out of Democrats’ playbook, blaming the “greed” of oil companies for increased oil prices, even as an oil trade association attributed the spike to the conflict in Iran.
“Just fueled up the dually with diesel yesterday, I decided to do that instead of sending my daughter to school next year,” Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, said in a video posted on TikTok Tuesday. “The price of the gasoline in the tank is going up. The whole thing is just ridiculous. It’s greed.”
Burchett noted that the United States does not purchase any oil from Iran.
“How much oil does America get from Iran?” he asked. “Zero. This is a scam, and these oil companies, shame on them, are using this opportunity to make record profits.”
Burchett added that Americans have to ask themselves, even if “we were getting it [from them], what about the stuff that is already in the pipeline?”
“The stuff that’s already been paid for? What about the gasoline that’s already in the tank in your neighborhood filling station, how does it go up exponentially when something happens overseas?” he said. “It’s a scam.”
“The reality is that they’re ripping us off,” he argued.
Democrats have traditionally been more likely to attribute higher prices to companies’ greed, rather than market forces.
The American Petroleum Institute, a trade association that represents America’s oil industry, told The Daily Signal that the recent surge in oil prices is due to the escalating tensions in the Middle East.
“Gasoline prices are primarily driven by the global price of crude oil, which has risen amid escalating tensions in the Middle East and disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” a spokesperson for the organization said. “While markets often react to geopolitical risk, the U.S. is in a far stronger position today than in past crises, with record domestic oil and natural gas production helping strengthen global supply and support market stability.”
Since the start of the United States’ military campaign against Iran on Feb. 28, the escalating tensions between the superpowers have limited the transportation of oil carriers traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.
As a result, crude oil futures in London and New York saw one of the biggest one-day jumps on record in early trading, as prices soared almost 30% to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday.
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