Warren: ‘We’re Going to Be on’ Oil Companies, ‘Profit Margins Should Not Go Up’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reacted to President Joe Biden’s ban on U.S. imports of Russian oil and gas by stating that Congress should monitor the profits of oil companies and “profit margins should not go up. That’s just oil companies gouging when they do that. So, we’re going to be on them on this.”

After Warren praised the Russian oil ban as “the right thing to do” to put economic pressure on Putin, host Andrea Mitchell stated, “Now, to try to soften the blow at the pump, the blow on consumers at this inflationary time, the president also made an appeal directly and an implied threat maybe jawboning to U.S. oil companies to produce more.”

After Mitchell played a clip from Biden’s announcement where he stated that oil companies shouldn’t take advantage of the situation, she asked, “So, should Congress be monitoring profiteering?”

Warren responded, “Absolutely, and actually, we are. I’m co-sponsoring, with Sen. Whitehouse and others, a bill on a windfall profits tax. Look, we get it, supply and demand, that prices go up. But profit margins should not go up. That’s just oil companies gouging when they do that. So, we’re going to be on them on this.”

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