As gas prices remain near record levels, Democratic leaders are directing their ire toward the oil industry.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, President Joe Biden shared a chart showing crude oil prices falling in recent days while the price of gasoline has remained relatively steady at well over $4 for a gallon of regular fuel.

“Oil prices are decreasing, gas prices should too,” Biden wrote. “Last time oil was $96 a barrel, gas was $3.62 a gallon. Now it’s $4.31. Oil and gas companies shouldn’t pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.”

The U.S. price of crude oil has fallen from a peak of $123.70 per barrel on March 8 to $96.44 Tuesday — a 22% drop. But to date, that hasn’t translated into comparable savings at gas pumps. Since hitting a record high of $4.331 per gallon Friday, gas prices have fallen only slightly to $4.305 — a 0.6% decline.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday he expects Congress to call CEOs from oil and gas companies to testify in the coming weeks on what he described as an "alarming spike in energy prices.”

“The bewildering incongruity between falling oil prices and rising gas prices smacks of price gouging and is deeply damaging to working Americans,” he said on the Senate floor. “The Senate is going to get answers.”

In a statement emailed to Spectrum News on Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group that represents the oil and natural gas industry, said there are valid reasons for a lag between when crude oil prices and gas prices fall.

"On gas prices, the American people are looking for solutions, not finger pointing,” said Frank Macchiarola, API’s senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs. “Across the economy, retail prices in many industries go down slower than they go up — this isn't a new phenomenon. 

“As we've seen in the past, it takes time for changing market conditions to work through the supply chain and for the price of crude oil to be widely reflected in the price we pay at local gas stations, more than 95 percent of which are independently owned small businesses and not operated by oil companies.”