Zeus: Oil’s up. Here come the windfall tax arguments

By Trey Thoelcke Published Mar 24, 9:45AM EDT

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Zeus: Oil’s up. Here come the windfall tax arguments — © Equinor ASA

By David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc.)

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — Like spring cherry blossoms and April showers, as soon as oil prices rise enough to hit the broadcast news leads, the inevitable arguments for taxing oil companies on their profit windfalls make the rounds.

Oil’s rise this spring has been especially uncomfortable, and some economists predict it could rise to more than $200 a barrel from $114 a barrel this week, yielding tens of billions in profit to the oil companies just as climate change agendas in Europe and the U.S. succumb to the war in Ukraine.

But as dangerous as oil companies are to global warming, and with our timelines to move from oil to renewable energy shrinking by the month, slapping a tax on windfall profits is as misguided now as it would have been to subsidize oil companies back when oil went negative two years ago. . . .

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About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.