David Obey: “those merger cases draw staff resources away from the commission's nonmerger activities, which often deal with existing…”

“those merger cases draw staff resources away from the commission's nonmerger activities, which often deal with existing continuing harm to consumers. The Federal Trade Commission has a continuing challenge in determining how to divide its resources between its merger and nonmerger investigations. At the beginning of this decade, the staff distribution for merger and nonmerger work was roughly 50/50. At the end of the decade, the ratio had changed to more than 2 to 1 in favor of mergers. When nonmerger emergencies develop that require antitrust investigation, such as the present gasoline price hikes, the merger wave has left the FTC with fewer resources to address the consumer harm as quickly and efficiently as warranted. Investigations such as the gasoline pricing investigation are staff intensive, time-consuming. They require analysis of all facets of a very complex industry. An investigation like this severely strains the competing workload being handled by the Agency's 150 antitrust lawyers. In this same industry, the FTC recently committed similar numbers of staff for its cases involving the mergers of Exxon, Mobil and BP Arco. Based on those recent experiences, it is clear that the FTC needs additional resources to fill its antitrust mission.”