Friday Flashback: Democrat Maxine Waters Wants Government to Take Over Oil Companies

Nationalize, nationalize is the word she was looking for, and it's what happens to industries in third-world banana republics run by dictators. In the set-up to this clip, Democrat Maxine Waters had asked a Shell executive John Hofmeister if he could guarantee gas price reductions if oil companies were allowed to conduct further exploration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BtuSioq-pU

MR. HOFMEISTER: On the contrary, I can guarantee to the American people, because of the inaction of the United States Congress, ever increasing prices, unless the demand comes down, and the $5 will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies.

MS. WATERS: .... And guess what this liberal would be all about? This liberal would be all about socializing--would be about basically taking over and the government running all of your companies, and that, I tell you, is an extreme position.

The above clip comes from a 22 May 2008 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing entitled Retail Gas Prices (Part II): Competition in the Oil Industry (given Waters' suggestion, she must have thought there was too much competition in the industry). Her comments can be found on page 190 of the PDF transcript of the hearing.

An additional copy of the transcript is available here if the GPO version becomes unavailable.