As gas prices hover at $3 a gallon, big oil companies say they aren’t gouging or profiteering off the oil crisis, but you can’t tell it from their third quarter earnings reports.

This week, all the major oil companies announced record profits. BP PLC (nee British Petroleum) reported earnings up 34 percent, from $4.9 billion to just over $6.5 billion. ConocoPhillips reported $3.8 billion, up 89 percent. Chevron’s profits rose to $3.2 billion. Royal Dutch Shell PLC profits took a 68 percent jump, from $5.4 billion to $9 billion. Exxon Mobil’s net was up 75 percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit in history for a U.S. company, persuading the company to run defensive newspaper ads proclaiming their booty was “driven by the price of commodities we sell.”

Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert said record energy profits are “fine” and urged oil companies to voluntarily spend more on expanding our national refining capacity. The head of the energy industry’s lobbying group quoted percentages instead of total dollars and said the increases were “half the size of the returns of the financials and pharmaceuticals.” President Bush said nothing. Meanwhile, working families are struggling with rising gas prices and staring at devastating double-digit price hikes in heating oil and natural gas as winter approaches.

The time for doubletalk is over. Congress should get its priorities straight and act immediately to investigate price gouging by oil companies, establish price caps on gasoline, heating oil and natural gas and enact a windfall profits tax to fund rebuilding in the Gulf. Congress should also move beyond the president’s recently passed but empty energy bill and lead a national initiative to achieve true energy independence for our country.

Contact Esmeralda Aguilar 202-637-5018