PLATTSBURGH -- U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is proposing a windfall-profits tax on oil companies.

What's your opinion? Discuss this story on the Economic Development forum of North Country BizConnect.

"Once again, consumers' pain is Exxon's gain," Schumer said in a statement.

"Oil companies are wracking up obscene profits left and right while American families are stretched to the limit by skyrocketing gas prices. It's high time for big oil to pay its fair share. It's time for a tax on their windfall profits."

Schumer's measure, co-sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), would levy a tax on the windfall profits of American oil companies and foreign companies with substantial operations in the United States in 2008 and 2009.

The legislation provides a formula for calculating the earnings that are subject to the tax.

Oil companies would calculate their annual profit for each year from 2003 to 2007, subtract the year that saw the greatest profit and take an average of the four remaining years.

That figure, plus 10 percent, would represent the "reasonably inflated average profit."

Any profits earned by companies in 2008 or 2009 that exceed this "reasonably inflated average profit" will be deemed "windfall profit" and would be taxed at a special supplemental rate of 25 percent.

Schumer (D-Brooklyn) offered similar legislation in 2005 to fund relief for Hurricane Katrina victims.

He is also urging the Energy Department's independent watchdog to probe whether the decision of the administration of President George W. Bush to continue to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve amid record-high oil prices skirts the provisions of the 2005 Energy Act.

In addition to seeking a stop to filling the reserve, Schumer and other senators are threatening to block pending arms deals with oil-producing nations if those countries do not significantly increase their oil production.

jlotemplio@pressrepublican.com