Biden to float windfall profits tax on oil giants
Following months of sustained pressure from progressive campaigners and members of Congress, President Joe Biden on Monday is reportedly planning to suggest imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies if they refuse to boost production and lower costs for consumers.
Biden is set to float the popular tax proposal during a White House speech at 4:30 pm ET, days after oil companies in the U.S. and Europe reported massive—and, in the case of ExxonMobil, record-shattering—profits for the third quarter of this year.
The Washington Post reported that “the president is not expected to formally endorse the tax but instead to urge that one should be explored if the energy giants do not expand their output.”
“The White House has been frustrated by what aides see as energy companies’ use of record profits to reward shareholders rather than produce more product and bring down prices at the pump,” the Post added, citing unnamed people familiar with Biden’s planned remarks.
“This is the right thing for President Biden to do,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the leading congressional advocates of a windfall profits tax, tweeted Monday in response to news of Biden’s address, which will come just over a week before the midterm elections.
Biden has repeatedly criticized oil companies for raking in huge profits at the expense of U.S. consumers, but he’s thus far stopped short of backing specific legislative action to punish the fossil fuel industry over its profiteering despite survey data showing that a windfall profits tax is extremely popular with the U.S. public.
One poll conducted in March found that 80% of U.S. voters—including 73% of Republicans—support “placing a windfall profits tax on the extra profits oil companies are making from the higher gasoline prices they are charging because of the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
“President Biden is right,” Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted Monday. “At a time when Exxon, Shell, and Chevron increased their profits by 168% to $81 billion in the last two quarters by charging outrageously high prices at the pump, we need a windfall profits tax. The revenue should go directly back to the American people.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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