Stuff about taxing oil companies

The House passed a bill recently calling for $18B in taxes on the oil industry (by closing previous tax breaks for them). The tax revenue is scheduled to go to fund alternative energy sources like solar, wind and biothermal.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Energy-Taxes.html

It doesn't seem fair that we should close tax breaks for oil companies. After all, Exxon Mobil only made $40 BILLION dollars in PROFIT last year (a record).

Senate Republicans are going to try to filibuster this and President Bush has said he will veto it. According to the NY Times: "The White House maintains that singling out the oil companies for higher taxes ''would reduce the nation's energy security rather than improve it'' and ''lead to higher energy costs to U.S. consumers and business.''"

It seems to me that the first part of the White House's quote isn't true, and the second part of it isn't the issue. Everyone knows that it will be expensive to develop alternative energy sources, which will result in higher energy prices in the short term. But in the long term, we'll save the environment and make our energy situation more secure by not having to rely on our enemies selling us oil (and then buying weapons with the profits they make from us).