What Happened To Obama's Windfall Profits Tax On Energy Companies?

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

April 17, 2012 | 4:12 PM

Obama Speaks Manufacturing Plant In Iowa

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President Obama speaks to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Politico has an interesting piece today on how candidate Barack Obama supported increasing taxes on oil companies, but President Barack Obama has since backed away from the proposal:

With gas prices at record highs during the campaign, Obama backed the so-called windfall profits tax as the top item of his energy agenda, arguing it was needed once oil tops $80 per barrel. He ran TV ads in 18 states touting the idea and slammed GOP rival John McCain for taking oil company contributions “instead of taxing their windfall profits to help drivers.”

But four years later, as oil sits well above the $80 marker for the second year in a row and Republicans hammer Obama on energy policy, the idea is about as popular in the West Wing as $4-per-gallon gas.

The windfall profits tax was replaced with a call to close energy companies’ tax loopholes. That’s a proposal Obama pushed during a 2011 appearance in Pennsylvania.