Former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield said it would be best if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) simply rescinded its ban on him serving on Exxon Mobil’s board of directors.

Its ban of John Hess, chief of Hess Corp., from serving on Chevron Corp.’s board post-merger should be rescinded too, he told Hart Energy in an interview prior to speaking at CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston March 11.

Sheffield’s attendance at past CERAWeek conferences over decades was among the FTC majority opinion’s complaints against him in May.

In the 3-2 opinion, now-former Commissioner Lina Khan said Sheffield networked with other oil producers at CERAWeek, which is an annual networking program attended by thousands of energy industry members.

She said the networking could have led to controlling global oil prices.

Sheffield told Hart Energy that the FTC order in May prohibiting him from serving on the Exxon Mobil board as a condition of its $64.5-billion merger with Pioneer was a surprise.

“When I found out what was happening, I was obviously totally shocked,” he said.

It was purely political, he added. “I feel like how [President] Trump felt over the last four years—being weaponized by the past administration.”

In Sheffield’s case, it was by Khan, the President Biden-appointed FTC chair who departed the commission upon Trump’s return to the White House on Jan. 20.

Andrew Ferguson, the new chairman of the five-member FTC, had dissented in the FTC ruling in May along with Commissioner Melissa Holyoak.

“They both voted against the order and both of them have said it was pretty much illegal. It's a baseless and illegal order that was done,” Sheffield said.

In the dissenting opinion, Holyoak and Ferguson wrote that the majority opinion was “one of the most ludicrous theories of harm in [the FTC’s] merger-enforcement history” and demonstrated “indifference toward First Amendment rights.”

Sheffield said, “The FTC had no right to even put out that order. They have no authority to put out that kind of order.”

The FTC currently consists of four members.

Sheffield has a suit outstanding in a federal court in Fort Worth, requesting the ban be overruled.

“It's ongoing. It takes time to go through that. But at the same time, we have a new administration, we have a new FTC and the two FTC Republican commissioners who were against the [May] order, they were against the order for John Hess also.

“We’re hoping—with the third Republican that's coming [onto the commission] in the next 60 days—the FTC will be all Republican and there'll be, hopefully, a compromise [between the court and the FTC] to vacate the order.

“That's what I'm hoping happens.”

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