It’s always worth reading what Stein has to say on topics such as these. As is the often the case in matters such as these, it’s always more comfortable to go after an easy target especially if that easy target is a big, rich oil company. Politicians, in their constant search for the good soundbite, look for these easy targets, ignoring the underlying complexity because complexity is bad for their campaigns. However, if you continue to target the wrong thing in these cases, you’ll eventually find out that the market has removed the easy targets from the shooting range.
Short version: Oil companies have little to nothing to do with the prices of the oil and gas products you consume. The market sets these prices independent of the oil companies interests. Our Congress-critters ignore that at all our peril.