You tax the oil companies more and then expect lower gas prices. What is wrong with that reasoning......
Perhaps one can find reasoning in it if one removes common sense, vision, and national concern from the picture.
This goes back to the "belief" that corporations pay taxes.
It is like in May when you ask a friend if they paid taxes last year. They may respond that they "didn't pay any taxes, I got a refund", meaning they got a few hundred back, not considering the thousands they actually paid.
It drives me nuts.
Basic economics says that the price of a commodity is not necessarily based on the cost of production but on supply and demand.
Since the oil companies are currently flush with cash, if demand for oil continues to decline, then prices would go down even if the oil companies were forced to pay some sort of windfall profits tax.
Of course I would rather the "windfall profits" go to "evil" oil execs who will spend it on a twentieth vacation home or a thirtieth Ferrari rather than on giving it to the feds where it will be squandered on "renewable" energy studies and general waste, fraud and abuse.