Bush to Nation: 'What Gas Problem?'

The president today announced that he rejects imposing a windfall tax on oil company profits. He claims there is no evidence of price gouging of consumers. I would be curious as to how he would define what they are doing, given there is no shortage of oil and no apparent reason for prices to continue to climb.

Bush claims that instead of a tax, the oil industry should reinvest its recent gains into finding and producing more energy. It's a nice thought, but the reality would be they would then have even MORE gas that they could charge $3.00 a gallon or more for. So, where does it end?

I have another suggestion. Instead of a tax, why not set a price and require all oil companies to offer their product at that price for at least the next year. The Associated Press is reporting that Exxon-Mobil, the nation's biggest oil company, said its earnings climbed by 7 percent to $8.4 billion during the January-March period.

If that's the case, then let's set the maximum price at a figure that is discounted by at least one and a half times that percentage increase. In other words, take the 7 percent increase and add 3.5 percent to that. That would mean oil companies would immediately have to discount their gasoline prices by at least .315 cents per gallon.

The result would be that gasoline at $3.00 per gallon would then sell for $2.685 per gallon. That seems more than fair to me.

Bush, a former Texas oilman, said Congress needs to provide regulatory relief so refineries can be expanded and new ones built. His answer is to the rising costs also include, temporarily halting the filling of the government's emergency petroleum reserve and easing environmental standards on gasoline additives.

It's all becoming clearer now ... get rid of the regulations that protect the environment so that IF the oil companies do decide to bring the price down, they still earn an additional profit from a reduction in production costs.