Windfall profits tax on oil companies proposed
Richard Blumenthal is joining other U.S. senators in proposing a windfall profits tax on the nation’s big oil companies.
The money that is collected from the companies would be returned to consumers in the form of a quarterly rebate, Blumenthal said during a virtual press conference Friday.
The average Connecticut family would see an annual rebate of $360, he said.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” the senator said. “Prices rise and big oil companies profiteer. The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax aims to stop the big oil companies from profiteering and exploiting Putin’s war.”
Blumenthal said the rebates would phase out for families making more than $150,000 per year. He is a co-sponsor of the bill, which is being introduced by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
Whitehouse’s bill calls for oil companies that produce or import at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day to pay a quarterly per-barrel tax equal to 50 percent of the difference between the current price of oil and the pre-pandemic average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019. The tax will apply to domestically produced and imported barrels of oil.
Smaller oil companies accounting for roughly 70 percent of the domestic production will be exempt, which according to Whitehouse, is designed to make sure larger companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron cannot simply further raise prices on consumers without the threat of losing market share.
“We cannot allow the fossil fuel industry to once again collect a massive windfall by taking advantage of an international crisis,” Whitehuse said in a statement.
“There is no magic bullet, no one single solution,” designed to address the current levels of inflation U.S. consumers are facing, he said. Blumenthal noted he has introduced legislation to lower
high gas prices by temporarily suspending the federal gas tax through the end of the year
“Right now, we face a crisis,” Blumenthal said. “We need to resort to using every tool we have to provide some kind of relief. Inflation must be curbed and one of the ways to do that is to put money back in people’s pockets.”