Last week CEOs from five major oil companies testified before Congress about their recent record quarterly profits. Unlike the Enron execs and major league baseball players before them, the oil execs were never officially sworn in because Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was against it. Several members objected. One senator called for a vote to have them sworn in and that motion was seconded, but Stevens deemed that out of order and refused to swear them in.

One of the questions the CEOs were asked was whether they met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001, which they denied. However, a document obtained this week by The Washington Post, "shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco, Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated."

Ted Stevens may have just saved some of the most powerful men in America from perjury charges. However, a person can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for making "any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation" to Congress.

The oil execs should definitely be asked about their connections to Cheney's task force and why the lied (this time under oath). But Senator Stevens should also be questioned about why he was so adamant about not swearing them in.