Interesting op-ed in Forbes:  Backdoor Oil Tax Is Unconstitutional, by Mallory Factor & Phil Kerpen:

In this city, some bad ideas never die–they don’t even fade away. Condemned by economists across the political spectrum, the windfall profits tax on oil companies went down on a ringing 64-35 Senate defeat in November.

But rather than let a bad idea die, some of our esteemed U.S. senators came up with an even nuttier, and probably illegal, version of that bad idea and slipped it into an important, must-pass piece of legislation, the tax reconciliation bill. That measure is an unconstitutional, $4.3 billion asset seizure, ex post facto. Above all, it is a backdoor windfall profits tax accomplished by arbitrarily forcing oil companies to revalue their 2005 inventories.