Over 50 Organizations Urge House and Senate Leaders to Pass a Windfall Profits Tax

(Washington, D.C.) — Today, over 50 organizations – including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and League of Conservation Voters – sent a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging them to pass the Big Oil Windfalls Profits Tax. The letter comes after ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP released their fourth quarter profits, topping off a record-shattering year with a combined $219 billion. In response to these record-profits amid widespread suffering at the pump for the public, Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse proposed legislation last week that would impose a tax on the windfall profits for the biggest oil and gas companies and use the revenue to provide immediate relief for families struggling to put food on the table and fill up their gas tanks.

Grassroots and national groups from across the country are standing together to call on Congress to take action and pass a windfall profits tax. Over the last year, organizations like Stop the Oil Profiteering have advocated for the Big Oil Windfalls Profits Tax since it was first introduced last March. In a press conference earlier this month, Senators Ed Markey, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jeff Merkley along with Representatives Ro Khanna and Rashida Tlaib urged their fellow colleagues to hold Big Oil companies accountable through a windfall profits tax. 

Below is an excerpt from their letter: 

“Behind these rising costs is the outrageous profiteering committed by oil and gas companies over the past year. The price of fuel is high for the simple reason that oil and gas company CEOs have kept it high in order to bring in record profits and enrich their wealthy shareholders. It’s an enormous transfer of wealth from working people to the wealthiest 10%. Utility companies are then passing the high cost of oil and gas company stock buybacks directly onto their ratepayers, while continuing to pay tens of millions of dollars to their wealthy CEOs and failing to provide struggling households with meaningful options for relief.”

For over a year, Big Oil has used inflation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the global energy crisis as smokescreens for raising prices. Between 2021 and 2022, oil and gas prices were 44% higher.

87% of Americans, regardless of their position on the political spectrum, support Congress cracking down on Big Oil price gouging, and 80% support passing a windfall profits tax. A windfall profits tax could deliver roughly $1,300 to qualifying families and individuals, putting money back into the pockets of Americans dealing with skyrocketing gas and utility prices at home and at the pump.