A tax puts the pressure on the oil companies to seek the cheapest petroleum possible, because that means they will be catching unholy hell in the media for the price of gasoline, without making the money needed to drill wells and pay an army of attorneys to clear the way to try to increase infrastructure capacity.
A tax (even more than we already have) removes money from the economy and redistributes it along pathways which will not necessarily benefit the economy, with the exception of people studying the sex lives of Ostracodes, or cow farts or some such, or coming up with new ways to grind birds while generating electricity.
It will not get more wells drilled or refineries built, and thus will not address the root problem.
With the price of oil increasing, that tax would have done little good, in fact, more harm, especially considering the subsequent hurricanes and their effect on the industry.
Well, he got his wish, but not in the way he was pushing for. Prices are up, due to the one-two punch of increased Asian demand, (Chinese drilling wells in the Piceance Basin in Colorado, buying up huge shares of the rights to the Alberts tar sands), and hurricane disruption of our producing and refining infrastructure right here at home. Only this time, thanks to nature's fury, at least some of the money will end up where it will be spent on drilling more wells, building more pipelines, and maybe, if the ecowhackos and Nimbys will finally back off just a little, more refineries.
For those who embrace the idea of alternate techniologies, there is also the financial incentive (unavailable at cheaper oil prices) to develop those technologies, and ease them through the critical but expensive growing pains of any technology at its inception. Cutting oil prices at this point would undermine that, too, as venture capital would flee elsewhere for greener pastures.
Well put!