Opinion | Chuck Schumer Doesn’t Know How Gas Prices Work

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 22 Democratic senators recently wrote to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan calling for an investigation into the proposed mergers between Exxon Mobil and Pioneer Natural Resources and Chevron and Hess. The letter argues that these mergers will enable “anticompetitive coordination in the industry” and raise U.S. gasoline prices. The letter, however, is based on dubious economic and legal logic and spurious historical analysis. It’s a mischaracterization of how the oil-and-gas industry operates.

A fair assessment of the proposed mergers and the fossil-fuel market doesn’t reveal a firm legal and economic basis to initiate antitrust enforcement proceedings against these deals. If the senators really want a competitive energy market that supplies American consumers with lower-priced fuel, they should support these mergers, not obstruct them.