Rosen joins in Democratic Senate effort to block oil giants’ recent acquisitions

Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen is urging the federal government to nix a pair recent acquisitions by oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron on grounds the moves stand to hurt consumers.

In October, Exxon Mobil announced it was acquiring Pioneer Natural Resources Company, an Irving, Texas-based oil exploration firm that’s the largest acreage holder in the oil-rich Permian Basin, which spans between parts of Texas and New Mexico.

The $59.5 billion acquisition came less than two weeks before Chevron announced its own $53 billion purchase of Hess Corp., an oil exploration company that recently discovered a major oil field in the northern part of the South American nation of Guyana.

Those deals prompted Rosen and 22 other Democratic colleagues in the U.S. Senate to send a letter last month to Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Lina Khan, stating the mergers would enable Exxon and Chevron to redirect Pioneer’s and Hess’ crude supply away from midstream competitors and raise the price of crude oil.

“Such added costs are often passed downstream to retail customers, including drivers at gas stations,” the senators said.

Rosen doubled down on that assertion in a phone interview this past week with the Sun, noting that Chevron, Exxon and other “big oil” companies have reaped in record profits since the pandemic. Rosen also contends expensive gas leads to higher-priced goods, and that can ripple throughout the entire supply chain.

“I’m hearing it every day from families up and down all across our state, how they’re just being hit so hard by inflation and rising prices,” Rosen said. “It’s forcing them to make tough decisions, and the No. 1 complaint I hear about is, of course, the price of gas.”

Rosen’s view on the mergers’ effects, though, isn’t universally shared. Even if the deals go through, they will likely have little to no bearing on consumers in Nevada, said Sheridan Titman, a finance professor and director of the Energy Management and Innovation Center at the University of Texas. Gasoline prices in the U.S. are largely determined by politics around the world, he said.

And while these deals might eventually affect the price of crude oil, the companies being acquired are not refineries, which turn the oil into gas, Titman said.

“I can’t see this having a big effect on Nevada gasoline prices,” Titman said. “There are economies of scale associated with these types of oil developments, so it’s good to have this in the hands of companies that are competent and have the financial wherewithal to do it.”

While it’s true that the deals are just two of the most recent examples of consolidation in the oil market, Titman said, it also makes sense for larger corporations with safer and more efficient drilling practices to buy out smaller competitors that might have to cut corners to keep pace.

“I think they can have a more disciplined, more efficient way of exploiting the assets with a consolidation,” he said. “I also think it’s a good thing to have bigger players because I think they’re less sloppy, there’s less methane emissions, and they’re more environmentally sound.”

Horsford sounds call for Rosa Parks federal holiday

Nevada U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, a Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, called on lawmakers Wednesday to pass a bill that would make Dec. 1 a federal holiday to commemorate the arrest of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Horsford is among 31 House members (and the only from Nevada) who has co-sponsored legislation from Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., seeking to establish a federal Parks holiday.

“We recognize that when we uplift the stories of the Black community, we uplift the stories of U.S. history,” Horsford said at a news conference alongside Sewell and other members of the caucus. “Dec. 1, 1955, was monumental for our nation and for the fight for civil rights. For Black Americans and, really, for all of America.”

Parks was arrested Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus. That in turn started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the seminal moments of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Reid, other Nevada airports score big grant

Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport was awarded approximately $46 million after securing a grant authorized by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, according to a release Thursday from Rosen’s office. It’s some of the $60.9 million secured from the spending bill that will go toward other airports in the state and is in addition to another $31 million secured by Nevada’s congressional delegations for terminal improvements at the Reid airport.

The Reno-Tahoe International Airport is expected to receive about $6.9 million through this recent round of grant funding. The Boulder City Municipal Airport will receive $1.9 million, while 27 other airports throughout the state will receive funding totaling more than $6 million, according to Rosen’s office.

Nevada awarded $12 million to combat wildfires

Nevada has been awarded $11.9 million from the U.S. Department of the Interior to invest in wildfire resilience projects on more than 100,000 acres across the state.

The funding, announced by the office of U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., was also made available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and is part of a $468 million effort nationwide to mitigate wildfire risks and rehabilitate burned areas.

“In the wake of the massive York Fire that burned more than 9,000 acres in Clark County alone earlier this year, it’s clear we need significant resources to tackle the thousands of wildfires that occur in our state and throughout the West every year,” Lee said in a statement.