Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was seemingly one of the only lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to take her assignment seriously Thursday during a hearing “to examine the use of energy as a tool and a weapon.” The Nevada lawmaker, who boasts a 97% lifetime score with the League of Conservation Voters, grilled Shell Senior Gulf of Mexico VP Colette Hirstius about the company’s prioritization of shareholder profits over her constituents’ needs.
“Oil and gas companies certainly aren’t hurting,” Cortez Masto said. “In recent days, major oil companies in the United States have said that they would rather use their earnings from higher prices to boost payouts to shareholders and expand their operations slowly, rather than rush to drill new—or develop existing—wells.”
Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Shell boasted a significant uptick in profits for 2021, recording adjusted earnings of $19.29 billion. It’s not the only oil and gas company that appears to be raking it in: Exxon, Chevron, and BP are also benefitting from skyrocketing oil prices.
For Hirstius, that meant dodging questions from Cortez Masto about “prioritizing payouts to shareholders rather than working to increase our oil supply.” Cortez Masto flat-out asked, “Would your company be willing to forgo paying out dividends to pass along that relief to consumers who are seeing high prices in my state and across the country?” Hirstius’ responses during this exchange were considerably lacking. She issued vague talking points about increasing “all of the energy sources that we have” and claimed that “the prices are something that we do not control.”
Oil prices are typically determined by futures contracts, according to Investopedia, so speculation plays a big role in just how much the price of oil is per barrel. Given Cortez Masto’s record, it’s not as if she’s advocating for more damage to the planet, but rather calling Shell out for its bullshit. If a major polluter like Shell is that gung-ho about its role in the fossil fuel industry, why not ramp up production for the sake of keeping that dependence on oil and gas our sad reality? Hirstius and her ilk are happily lining their pockets, regardless of circumstances. According to Indeed, Shell VPs earn six-figure salaries that are approximately 156% above the national average. Given Hirstius’ seniority, that figure is likely to be even higher.
In a press release, Cortez Masto highlighted her exchange with Hirstius as well as her subsequent questions to Columbia University Senior Research Scholar Jonathan Elkind, who admitted that oil and gas companies have underinvested over the last five years. Elkind quoted Hess Petroleum Chairman John Hess, who said during CERAWeek that “investors have been telling oil companies not to invest so much. Well, this is a crisis. We should be investing more as an industry. We’ve had five years of underinvestment and we’re paying for it now.” “The investors keep them alive so from that perspective that is understandable,” Elkind admitted. If anything, this directly highlights why it’s time to pull away from the oil and gas industry that never cared about consumers in the first place.