Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Congress returns to work this week and you can bet the debate will quickly turn to rising gasoline prices.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., guaranteed as much during a recent telephone call from Israel.
His office, he said, has been getting a lot of calls on gasoline prices in the last week as prices topped the $3-a-gallon mark in some places.
“The price at the pump is creating a lot of concerns,” he said.
Dodd plans to turn the scheduled debate over supplemental spending to legislation he helped write that would impose a windfall-profits tax on oil companies that would be returned to consumers in the form of a rebate.
“I am planning on reviving two bills. An excess profits tax that would give a rebate to consumers when prices exceed $40 a barrel, unless the oil companies invested in new or alternative energy,” he said. The price was $74 a barrel last week.
Congress has been on spring break for the last two weeks. Dodd spent the last week in the Middle East visiting Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt as part of a Senate-sponsored trip. He said that tensions in the region have an impact on oil prices and urged President Bush to get more involved in brokering peace between Israel and Palestine.
“It is critically important to be far more engaged than we have over the last
five years,” he said.
The anxiety over the Middle East, however, does not explain away the recent
boost in oil prices.
Dodd said members of the public are angry because they believe oil companies are boosting profits at their expense and handing executives excessive salaries and compensation packages.
Exxon Mobil Corp. invested only $10 million last year on direct research on alternative energy while reaping a record $36 billion in profits. Meanwhile, it handed its retiring chief executive officer a nearly half-billion-dollar parachute, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. The New York Times reported last week that recently retired Exxon Mobil CEO Lee R. Raymond received a $400 million compensation package in his final year, factoring in his salary, stock options, pension and longer-term restricted stock grants.
The nonprofit taxpayer foundation issued a study last week that blamed corporate markups and profiteering for the spring price spikes, not rising crude costs or the national switchover to higher-cost ethanol.
Bob Slaughter of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association said that rising gasoline prices are a result of record-priced crude oil prices and high-priced ethanol used to produce cleaner-burning gasoline. Oil refiners have had to switch from the gasoline additive MTBE to ethanol. Slaughter also noted that 3 percent of the nation’s refining capacity is still out of service because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Aside from the windfall profits tax, Dodd said he would revive legislation that would give the federal government more powers to go after price-gouging.
“I hope we can get both done during consideration of the supplemental [spending] bill,” he said.
The debate, however, may not result in any real action. Democrats and
Republicans seem intent on turning oil prices into a mid-term campaign issue.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent House candidates a memorandum advising them how to use the oil issue to their advantage. Democrats running for the Senate are also turning to high gasoline prices as an issue to use against President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.
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Peter Urban, who covers Washington, can be reached by e-mail at: [email protected]
