Exxon/Mobil et al aren’t taxed on how many gallons they sell. They are taxed like any other corporation on their profits. If the amount of their profits go down, so too does the amount of tax revenue collected from them.
When you buy a gallon of gas for your car, you pay so much tax to the federal government and so much to the state.
Each company in the chain, the station, the wholesaler, the manufacturer and the drilling company makes a profit.
It has been proved over the years that lowering taxes on the corporations results in a great increase in business activity and therefore increased profits.
OK, now they are making profit on volume, not on scarcity, so you buy more gas because either it has gone down in price because of the larger supply or it remains the same price even though the general cost of living continues to climb due to inflation...so its real value is less.
Now because it is easier to pay for, you use more. You go to the beach, you go three states over to see aunt Jane, you ride around on Sunday taking the kids to see the mountains.
Guess what? The filling stations send more tax money to the feds and to the state.
So does the motel and the places you stop for refreshments.
OK, now the truckers can make a living without getting an arm and a leg to haul goods to the grocery store... so the store benefits, the trucker benefits, and they all pay taxes.
Think it through. That is what happened in the Reagan tax cuts, it is what happened in the Bush tax cuts and it will happen again if we cut taxes again.
So the government does realize increased revenue and does not have to have a general tax increase.
Especially, we need to take the restrictions off so the oil companies can drill wherever oil can be found, and the various restrictions that keep the refineries from building new plants.
I read somewhere that it takes 5 years of paperwork to get a new refinery approved even if the chosen community will allow it.
I would expect that the onerous government regulations are more burdensome to the oil industry than are the federal taxes, but reducing both would definitely increase the supply of fuel oil and gasoline.