FTC Commissioner nominee Lina M. Khan testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on the nomination of former Senator Bill Nelson as NASA Administrator on April 21, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, USA , out of.
Graeme Jennings | Reuters
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into President Joe Biden’s newly created task force on corporate pricing practices, claiming it could be used as a “political tool,” according to a letter obtained by CNBC
In Tuesday’s letter, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee requested that Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan release by April 30 all FTC records related to the establishment of the Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, the Biden launched in March to address concerns about companies’ pricing practices.
“The timing of the Strike Force announcement in an election year increases the likelihood that political motivations, rather than the interests of American consumers, drove the action,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in the letter . “Using the FTC as a tool in a political witch hunt against U.S. companies would be a shocking abuse of the agency’s power.”
The Strike Force is co-led by the FTC and the Justice Department, which have been at the forefront of the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda in recent years.
Khan and Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter have cracked down on more than 50 proposed deals in sectors such as technology, energy and food since taking office in 2021, recording both wins and losses.
In the letter, Comer also requested all documents related to the FTC’s 2021 investigation into alleged gasoline price fixing, as well as planned mergers between major grocers Kroger and Albertsons and other companies.
“This FTC – which should be an independent agency – has a history of serving President Biden’s partisan wishes,” Comer said in the letter.
The FTC declined to comment.
The House panel’s investigation is the latest in a series of investigations into the FTC and Khan, which has become a key target of Republicans as antitrust enforcement has stepped up under her leadership.
Biden’s re-election campaign in 2024 depends in part on his ability to convince voters that his economic agenda is good for their wallets. And while the economy has been slow to recover since the devastating impact of the Covid pandemic, inflation remains stubborn and consumers are not feeling full relief from their daily living costs.
Biden, in turn, has regularly accused large corporations of keeping prices artificially high, even though supply chain problems from the pandemic have subsided and producer costs have fallen.
Comer claimed in the letter that “this pattern” of blaming companies’ pricing practices for inflation “signals that the new FTC-DOJ Strike Force is being used as a political tool.”
But Biden’s logic that corporations are responsible for high prices, not his economic agenda, could prevail with voters. A survey in March found that respondents were more likely to attribute recent price increases to “big companies taking advantage of inflation” than to Democratic policies.
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2024-04-16 21:50:25
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