“Oil Execs Grilled as Prices Spiral” was the headline yesterday on the Drudge Report, as Congress haled the big oil companies to talk about what it reckons are rising prices. “On April Fool’s Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil,” is the way Congressman Edward Markey was quoted by the Associated Press as putting it.

Well, the joke’s on Mr. Markey. For the biggest thigh-slapper of all is the claim in the Congress that oil prices are spiraling. They are spiraling only if measured against the scrip that is issued for currency by the United States government and is supposed to be regulated by the Congress in which Mr. Markey sits. If the price of oil is measured in gold, it’s been steady for years.

When President Bush acceded in January 2001, we pointed out in an editorial in November, a barrel of oil was selling for 8.25 100th’s of an ounce of gold. By November of 2007, it was selling for 8.32 100th’s of an ounce of gold. Today, it’s selling for about 8.9 100ths of an ounce of gold. In other words, the price of oil isn’t spiraling upward. The value of the dollar is spiraling downward.

This is a fact that the Congress doesn’t want to face. It is to the Congress that the Founders of America delegated the power to coin money and regulate its value and the value of foreign coin. But Congress — with a few exceptions, such as Ron Paul — has failed to keep its eye on its responsibilities these past few years. So the dollar has careered all over the place, mainly downward, creating the illusion of runaway oil prices.

What in fact we have is a runaway Congress, and the congressmen know it themselves. One of them is a character named Emanuel Cleaver II, a Democrat of Missouri, who, according to the AP, bellyached at the oil companies yesterday that “the anger level is rising significantly.” The Rev. Cleaver then delivered a tongue-lashing to the oil executives that was a classic even for Congress. Quoth Rev. Cleaver: “Your approval rating is lower than ours.”

Well, maybe the approval rating of the Congress, not to mention the oil companies, would be higher if the legislators attended to their basic responsibilities under Article I, Section 8, where powers are delegated to the legislature. Nowhere does it say that Congress is empowered to regulate the price of oil. It is empowered to regulate the value of money and of foreign coin. And if it would do its job, oil prices wouldn’t be all over the place in terms of the dollar, and correct price signals would be sent throughout the economy. And that’s no April Fool’s joke.