Biden Warns Oil Firms He’ll Seek Tax on ‘Windfall’ Profits

President Joe Biden said he’d seek to impose higher taxes on oil companies that record “windfall” profits without reinvesting in production, with US gasoline prices still high a week ahead of midterm elections.

“The oil industry has not met its commitment to invest in America and support the American people,” Biden said Monday. He called the industry’s profits “a windfall of war.”

Companies that don’t show they’re reinvesting in production, he said, are “going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions.” He added that he would “work with Congress to look at these options that are available to us.”

In his brief speech, Biden set out a promise that will be all but impossible to deliver. Many Democrats have unsuccessfully sought a so-called windfall profit tax for more than a decade. No such proposal is likely to pass the current Senate, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, and unless Biden’s party makes unexpected gains in next week’s elections, the GOP and centrist Democrats will be able to block it for the foreseeable future.

But the idea of imposing a tax on oil companies’ profits has garnered renewed attention among progressives in Congress after gasoline prices spiked to more than $5 a gallon this summer. Biden has repeatedly scolded Big Oil for the combination of high pump prices and record profits in the months leading up to the elections.

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