Clearly feeling inspired by John Edwards, Congress has determined that the solution to all of our problems is the lack of ability to sue.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.
The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.
The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.
The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.
“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.
Because the Congress never does anything that blocks supply and demand. Nope. Never. They never offer subsidies to American farmers for ethanol. They never impose tariffs on imports. They never threaten to steal for oil companies for having the gall to make too much money. Nor would they ever go so far as to prevent American oil companies from producing American oil. No no no. Congress are the purest of free traders.
Gutless asshats.
Or, as Fark puts it: “House passes bill requiring OPEC to sell oil to China instead of the United States”.
Indeed.