This past Tuesday, executives from Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips appeared before Rep. Edward Markey's "Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming" to defend their company's profits. Apparently, Congress is bored with steroids in baseball and wants to prove to their constituents back home that they are "doing something" about those high gas prices. Granted they can't actually do anything about the price of oil and gas, but they can claim they "took on Big Oil" when it comes time to print lit and film the TV commercials for the next election.

The committee's chairman, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., pressed Exxon Mobil's Simon to explain why his company couldn't commit 10 percent of its investments to renewable energy.

"Why is Exxon Mobil resisting the renewable revolution?" he asked.

Uh, Exxon Mobil is an oil company. Oil companies will invest money in renewable energy technologies if their finance guys conclude that the technologies are a worthwhile use of their time and money, not just because some Congressman wants them to do so.

Markey said lawmakers will likely call oil executives up to Capitol Hill again in coming months if gasoline prices don't fall.

"They are going to be the winners of the most frequent visitors to Washington contest," he told reporters.

Yeah, Markey, because falling gas prices will really spur the investment in alternatives that you were just demanding of the oil companies. What do you want, higher prices that lead to lowered demand, or a magical drop in gasoline prices that will lead to increased consumption? W...T...F?

If I was an oil company CEO, I don't think I could ever testify before Congress. The political grandstanding exhibited by the Congressmen questioning me would either a) force me to pull a Nick Naylor; or b) make my brain explode, thereby providing some entertainment for the three people that actually watch C-SPAN.