Will U.S. slap tax on Big Oil profits?

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday that the U.S. Congress should consider taxing the "windfall profits" reaped by oil companies as a result of surging crude oil prices.

Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and other lawmakers are responding to what they say is rising voter anger over gasoline prices, which exceed $3 a gallon in some regions of the country, about 31 percent higher than a year ago.

On Sunday, the Associated Press reported the Lundberg survey of 7,000 gas stations nationwide found that retail gas prices had jumped nearly a quarter per gallon in the past two weeks.

Specter, of Pennsylvania, earlier this month introduced legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement of the oil and natural gas industry to counter the consolidation of production and refining operations. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is proposing a 50 percent excise tax on profits from oil sold at more than $40 a barrel.

"Windfall profits, eliminating the antitrust exemption, considering the excessive concentration of power are all items we ought to be addressing," Specter said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition" program. "Anybody up for election this year ought to be working very hard, taking it very seriously."

As the price of crude oil has climbed — hitting a record $75.35 a barrel in New York on Friday — the combined 2005 earnings of Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, BP Plc, the second-biggest, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, topped $111 billion. At the same time, 70 percent of U.S. adults in an April 6-9 Washington Post/ABC News polls said the recent gasoline price increases are causing them a financial hardship.

"Candidates for elective office ought to always be worried," Specter said. The entire House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate face elections in November.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said President Bush should call oil company executives to the White House and tell them he'll support a new tax on their profits unless they lower prices.

"I'll bet that the price of gasoline would come down within a matter of days," Levin said on the CNN program. "We need a windfall profits tax because these profits have been absolutely obscene."

Oil companies blame surging crude oil prices and government regulations dictating the composition of gasoline or higher prices. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on April 21 said a switch under way to ethanol in gasoline may cause supply disruptions for several months.