The chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary’santitrust subcommittee said they plan to carefully review theproposed $35 billion merger of Chevron Corp. and Texaco Inc.because of the industry consolidation issues raised.

“We are seriously concerned by the news of the planned mergerbetween Chevron and Texaco,” said Subcommittee Chairman Mike DeWine(R-OH) and Herb Kohl (D-WI), ranking minority member of the panel.If approved by federal regulators, a combined ChevronTexaco wouldbecome the third largest natural gas and oil producer in the UnitedStates behind BP Amoco and ExxonMobil.

“Consumers all across the country are suffering from very high[energy] prices,” the senators noted, and “vigorous competition isessential to constrain these prices.” But the proposedChevron-Texas union will take the industry “further down the roadof consolidation [that] we have been concerned about for the lastcouple of years.”

In addition to close review by the Senate antitrust panel, “weexpect this deal to face careful scrutiny [by federal] antitrustauthorities, both to explore the industry-wide effects of such adeal and to examine the local market implications,” they said.

In contrast, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson had a positivereaction to the news of the Chevron-Texaco proposed merger. “Theseare two solid companies. This is one of the inevitable outgrowthsof the global economy.”

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