Senate Democrats led by Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada are re-upping a pair of bills this morning aimed at tackling rising energy costs by boosting federal regulators’ authorities.
The “Fair and Transparent Gas Prices Act” would provide the Federal Trade Commission with an additional $15 million a year to hire up to 50 additional investigators and enforcement personnel to up its oversight of price-gouging by oil and gas companies.
The bill, which Cortez Masto is introducing with Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), would direct the FTC to conduct a biennial study on whether the industry is charging fair prices.
Cortez Masto said in a statement that the bill addresses the “opportunity for corporate greed” created by the war in Iran. “We must ensure that Trump’s friends in the oil and gas industry aren’t taking advantage of the chaos to rake in record profits at the expense of hard-working American families,” she said.
