Prices surpassed $126 per barrel today. Also troubling is the U.S. dollar showed continued signs of weakness.

But don't worry. Our Democrat majority in Congress has everything under control.

Saying Democrats would "hold OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) accountable for price fixing," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats introduced the Consumers First Energy Act yesterday, with at least five specific goals:

(1) Enact a 25% windfall profits tax on oil companies operating in the U.S.

(2) Roll back existing tax breaks now worth $17 billion for oil and gas companies operating in the U.S. over 10 years.

(3) Authorize the U.S. Attorney General to charge members of OPEC with price collusion.

(4) Suspend additions to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the price of crude oil, now $123.53 a barrel, falls back to $75.

(5) Target price gouging and speculation.

Those who believe this will solve our energy problems might also like to buy a bridge to nowhere.

Regarding Exxon Mobile's earnings, The Wall Street Journal noted earlier this month, "they are high in absolute terms, given surging crude oil price they have to be compared to the huge capital requirements for exploration and development." It added Exxon spent nearly $21 billion on exploration and capital spending in 2007 with projections to up that by at least 20% over the next five years.

In 2006, said the American Petroleum Institute, spending by the oil and natural gas industry on drilling and equipping wells in the U.S. jumped 44% to an all-time high of $109.8 billion. Expenditures on natural gas wells accounted for 54% of the spending, while oil wells accounted for 34%. Spending on dry holes accounted for the balance.

"Nothing in the Democrats' plan will produce a single drop of oil," The Washington Post quoted Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, saying, then adding, "Americans don't need more taxes and more investigations. They need more oil and lower prices."

Chas W. Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the Democrats' plan "would probably result in OPEC dumping the dollar as the unit of account for the oil trade, throwing in into collapse, that it could well produce an oil embargo and much higher prices and that would have no support internationally, where it would be seen as the epitome of unilateralism that people criticize the Bush administration for."

Pointing out that windfall profit taxes undermined capital investments in the U.S. oil and gas industry and reduced domestic energy supplies in the past, Tony Cudmore, spokesman for Exxon Mobile, said, "Imposing punitive taxes on companies which already pay record taxes would discourage the sustained investments needed to safeguard U.S. energy security."

Those who want America to turn to alternative energy might ponder that "Everyone from the U.S. Energy Information Agency to the U.N." agrees," says the Journal, "that fossil fuels will still account for as much as 80% of the world energy needs through 2030, even with efficient gains and major growth in alternatives."

Writing in The Weekly Standard on alternative energy, William Tucker says "those 30-story windmills " like the three proposed for Bettie" "produce 1½ megawatts apiece" about 1/750th the power of a conventional generating station. Getting 1,000 megawatts would require a wind farm of 75 miles square." He adds wind, hydro and all the "alternate" sources of energy are dubbed "green" because they are supposedly clean, renewable and sustainable, but in fact what being "green" really mean is they all require vast amounts of land.

Paying more than $123 a barrel for oil in the meantime, with the world's largest reserves of coal and the ability to build nuclear plants and untold amounts of untapped energy lying offshore and in ANWR, we feel, as Bill Clinton used to say, "the pain." Enjoy it. It will increase.