Oil Companies Also Caught with Pants Down

Already in a little hot water for lamenting supply and demand problems after Katrina while making record profits, the CEO's of major oil companies are now in a little bit of trouble for not exactly being honest with Congress in hearings to explain their profits:

"A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate 'to my knowledge,' and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know."

Well, the president of Shell Oil may not know if his own company participated or not, but the Secret Service does:

"The person familiar with the task force's work, who requested anonymity out of concern about retribution, said the document was based on records kept by the Secret Service of people admitted to the White House complex. This person said most meetings were with Andrew Lundquist, the task force's executive director, and Cheney aide Karen Y. Knutson."

Of course the Washington Post isn't revealing where they got this document from, but one can imagine that source of the document was probably sitting in his/her recliner last week watching C-SPAN when he heard these oil company CEO's and presidents, and thought to himeself, "Hey, now wait a minute here...", before promptly digging out a copy and forwarding it on to a reporter.

So these lying cheats will get what's coming to them right?

"The executives were not under oath when they testified, so they are not vulnerable to charges of perjury; committee Democrats had protested the decision by Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) not to swear in the executives. But a person can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for making 'any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation' to Congress."

Aw, thanks for looking out for us there Stevens. My fantasy is of these crooked lying bastards being locked-up for a few months with some not so white-collar criminals, but I doubt that'll happen. However...

"Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who posed the question about the task force, said he will ask the Justice Department today to investigate. 'The White House went to great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task force,' Lautenberg said."

Putting these bastards in front of a judge-or better yet, enraged members of Congress-and forcing them to explain how they can possibly not know if their own companies are involved in talks with aides to the Vice President of the United States, will do the trick for me.