President Joe Biden buried his pride and shook hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in July, four years after directing the assassination of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, a forensics specialist, was one of the murderers. According to an allegation in a Turkish publication that was later reported by The Washington Post’s then-editorial page editor, the late Fred Hiatt, al-Tubaigy began dismembering Khashoggi on an autopsy table before he died. Before using his bone saw, al-Tubaigy put on earbuds because, as he explained to his fellow assassins, “I listen to music when I perform this work.” You should do the same.”
The Saudis tried al-Tubaigy in secret and condemned him in an elaborate court charade.
This moral stance was gratifying, but it was no more sustainable than the presumed desire of Salah, Abdullah, Noha, and Razan Khashoggi that their father’s killers be punished. That’s because Saudi Arabia possesses 17 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves and leads an illegal but powerful international oil cartel known as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Biden bumped fists with the crown prince because the United States needed oil to keep flowing while Russian President Vladimir Putin waged war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday that fist bump was answered with what’s being described (by Biden sympathizers) alternately as a “slap in the face” (David A. Andelman, CNN), a “spitting in the face” (economist Dean Baker, quoted in The Washington Post), and a “gut punch” (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post). OPEC announced it would cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. That immediately pushed up the price of benchmark Brent crude to $93 a barrel. By the end of last week Brent Crude was selling at $98.45 a barrel.
The Saudi slap inspired calls in Congress to pass the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC), a bill first introduced by then-Senator Herbert Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, in 2000, and reintroduced in just about every Congress since. The bill would clarify that neither the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which bars lawsuits against foreign nations, nor the “act of state” doctrine, which bars lawsuits against expropriation by foreign nations, prevents the Justice Department from busting OPEC, just as it routinely busts other international cartels. It has been doing so at least as far back as 1907, when it shut down a tobacco cartel that included two British firms. The Supreme Court affirmed in 1911 that the Justice Department had every right to prosecute foreign members of international cartels. Since 1995, according to the Justice Department, the antitrust division “has given top priority to aggressive enforcement against international cartels.” The lysine livestock-feed additive cartel—busted! The citric acid food additive cartel—busted! The graphite-electrode-for-steelmaking cartel—busted! The vitamin cartel—busted! Japanese nationals, German nationals, and Swiss nationals were all prosecuted, and some went to jail. We even prosecuted somebody from Canada, our friendly neighbor to the north. But participants in the world’s single biggest cartel, OPEC, walked free, escaping even civil penalties.
There are two central facts about NOPEC. The first is that it’s wildly popular; I don’t think it’s ever lost a single vote. The second is that in spite of its popularity, it never becomes law. Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all supported NOPEC as candidates. So did candidate Hillary Clinton. But once entering office, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all poured cold water on NOPEC as too irresponsible.
NOPEC cleared the House Judiciary Committee in April 2021 and it cleared Senate Judiciary Committee in May. Senator Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who’s led the NOPEC charge for the past few years, says he’ll try to attach it to the forthcoming defense appropriation bill. The Biden administration is so pissed off at bin Salman that it’s signaled it may be willing to support NOPEC, provided (this is the unspoken part) it can find some way to keep it from taking effect.
