I had to laugh when I read this:

(CNSNews.com) - Activists from more than a dozen environmental groups gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for the Clean Energy Act, the final part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) “100-hour” agenda that the activists are calling a “first step” in restructuring the government’s energy policy. . . .

“While the oil companies experience record profits, the federal government has been giving them a free ride,” Jeff Rickert, vice president of the Apollo Alliance, charged during a news conference Tuesday.

A free ride?  Here’s what Exxon Mobil paid in state and federal taxes in the third quarter of 2006 alone:

Income taxes: $7.68 billion
Excise taxes: $7.76 billion
All other taxes: $10.79 billion

Total taxes remitted/paid: $26.24 billion

You know how much they made, net, in the third quarter?  $10.49 billion.  Which means they paid about 2.5 times more in taxes than they made in profit.

Free ride my ass.  Kind of shows you who is really guilty of windfall profits in the oil industry.  It’s the government, not oil companies.

Can you imagine how much cheaper your gas would be if companies like Exxon Mobil didn’t have to pay $26 billion in taxes every quarter?  Or even just had to pay half of it?