Fox Nation: Oil Execs School Preening Senators on Hill

Big Oil CEOs on Capitol Hill Defend Profits, Tax Breaks

(Fuel Fix) - Executives from the nation's five biggest oil companies are telling a Senate panel this morning that they should not be blamed for spiking crude prices and that proposals to raise taxes on their firms will suppress domestic energy production.

The executives from Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil are appearing before the Finance Committee, as the full Senate begins debating a proposal to raise $21 billion over 10 years by axing a suite of industry tax credits and deductions.

Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., argued that global markets - not oil companies - set the price for crude, now above $100 per barrel. "Stated simply, oil is a global commodity," Odum said. "And oil companies are price takers, not price makers."