From coast to coast, states are looking for ways to increase revenues from the fat and happy oil companies to pay for roads and public transportation. With the media and Congress publicly airing the gross record profits of ExxonMobil and others, oil companies are firmly in the cross hairs of the states.
In Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle wants to raisegasoline taxes by $1.50 per barrel in the state.
In Idaho, the state wants to impose a gasoline tax on stations that sell fuel in tax-free Indian reservations. It's said that people go to Indian reservations to fill up on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol and gambling. Is that what the great chiefs (Seattle, Pontiac, etc) would want their tribes to be famous for?
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell wants to impose a 6.17 percent tax on gross oil company profits to pay help pay for public transportation.
Even in auto industry friendly Michigan, they are talking about raising gasoline taxes, and the same goes for oil-dependent Alaska, which wants to end a tax loophole that lets oil companies such as BP from writing off repairs to pipelines even if they were negligently maintained.
If the Senate can join with the House in ending the $14 billion in oil industry subsidies, we may see gas prices rise, even if crude oil prices remain the same.
