WASHINGTON – A smirking Martin Shkreli briefly united Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill this week, as lawmakers took turns blasting the price-hiking former CEO who has become the new poster child for corporate greed.

But the gridlocked state of Congress virtually assures federal efforts to lower drug prices will remain in limbo for years. And even then, experts warn that the options available to Congress would not stop companies like Turing Pharmaceuticals, where Shkreli engineered a 5000 percent price increase of a critical anti-infection drug.

For now, experts say the worst lawmakers can do is give price-gouging executives a verbal lashing before their committees. Richard Evans, a pharmaceutical analyst for SSR, says that won’t be enough to deter some companies.

“If you’re willing to take a public shaming – and that’s the only counterweight to a price increase – then you can take the price increase,” he said.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle took their best rhetorical shots at Shkreli on Thursday, but he was mostly mum. The 32-year-old entrepreneur repeatedly declined to answer questions, citing his Fifth amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. When lawmakers suggested that legal defense shouldn’t stop him from talking about his tenure as Turing’s CEO, Shkreli retorted: “I intend to follow the advice of my counsel, and not yours.”