On Wednesday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote to the U.S. CEOs of seven major oil companies accusing them of “profiteering” from the war in Iran and imploring them to return their bounty to Illinois consumers.

“Under the guise of supply disruptions from war in the Middle East,” Pritzker wrote, “your companies are collecting windfall profits from the hardworking families and businesses in Illinois. That’s the very definition of profiteering, and you owe it to the people of my state and the nation to disgorge those excess profits and provide meaningful price relief to consumers.”

Big Bad Oil. We get that this is good politics. Nobody likes to pay more at the pump. And according to AAA figures, average gas prices in Illinois have risen by about a third since the Iran War began in February.

Guess who else is on this bandwagon? Donald Trump, who told reporters Monday that Exxon and Chevron are “making too much money.” He’s pitching his typically Teflon populist card, knowing that many in his base are hurting and, as ever, looking to wriggle away from any responsibility.

We are no fans of excessive profiteering and carry no water for Big Oil. But as Pritzker and Trump, both businessmen who have taken advantage of increases in demand or constraints in supply, obviously know, the oil companies didn’t start the war and the gas prices at the pump reflect myriad complicated factors, not the least of which is the market price of oil.

“Under the guise of supply disruptions” hardly is fair. There have been actual supply disruptions, especially in the infamous Strait of Hormuz. There also is a school of thought that prices at the pump would in fact be a lot higher were it not for China’s exploding devotion to cheap electric vehicles, dampening demand for oil in China.

You don’t have to love Big Oil to understand that most retail gas prices have relatively small profit margins (bigger money is made in the convenience store) and are subject to seasonal demand and the price at the competing station down the street.

By this logic, Pritzker and Trump also would be demanding any company that raked it in during COVID (there were many) return its profits “to the public.” Ergo, letters should have been sent to Amazon, Microsoft and Zoom, to name three examples of companies who thrived in that health crisis. Others did well, of course, only for profits to collapse when some semblance of normalcy returned. Such are the perils of the marketplace. Anyone who owns stock in Moderna, to cite one example, regrets not selling sooner.

Public companies, of course, aren’t in the habit of returning their profits to “the public,” which would not go down well with their shareholders. And neither Pritzker nor Trump mention the government’s share. The state of Illinois currently adds 65.3 cents per gallon while the feds take 18.4 cents.

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