I filled up my car over the weekend and watched the meter top $35. Hmmm … gasoline prices are on the rise again, up 25 cents a gallon in the past month.

Businesses and families are feeling the impact of this price increase and its $12 million weekly drain from Washington’s economy. This past week has also been full of headlines announcing latest oil company profits. Exxon made $36 billion in net income in 2005. Shell made $23 billion. It’s easy to connect the dots.

The oil companies will blame Hurricane Katrina and surging demand from China for the rise in prices. But whomever they blame, they also are benefiting handsomely. Profits for the three U.S.-based oil giants combined – Exxon, Chevron and Conoco – grew from $13 billion in 2002 to $63 billion in 2005. That’s an almost fourfold increase.

Supply tightens up, prices increase and profits zoom. And with the top 10 oil companies hogging more than 83 percent of market share in refineries, they can keep supplies tight and not worry about competition. Never mind that gas and oil are essential commodities that keep our economy rolling.

There is talk about doing something about this in Washington, D.C. But we know it is only talk. So the focus shifts to the state and to Olympia. Is there anything our legislators can do besides complain?

The answer has been provided by a bipartisan group of representatives and senators. They have developed legislation to recoup some of the windfall profits enjoyed by the oil companies through a tax that is triggered by gasoline prices.

State Reps. Mike Sells and John McCoy of Everett, Steve Conway and Dennis Flannigan of Tacoma, Shirley Hankins of the Tri-Cities, Tami Green of University Place and Hans Dunshee of Snohomish have joined with state Rep. Bob Hasegawa and state Sens. Craig Pridemore of Vancouver and Erik Poulsen of Seattle in sponsoring a bill that would create an incentive to oil companies to keep gasoline prices down (House Bill 2977 and Senate Bill 6746).

If prices and profits continue to rise, this proposal will impose a tax to divert some of their windfall profits to the state to offset the high cost of heating fuel and gasoline.

How much revenue could this proposal raise? At today’s gasoline prices, about $500 million a year. That’s just a fraction of what is being exported from businesses and consumers to oil company coffers.

It might be unnecessary to enact this measure if the oil companies were reinvesting their profits into exploration, refining and the development of renewable energy resources. But no new refineries have been built in our country for 29 years! Of Exxon’s $36 billion, more than two-thirds, $25 billion, went to stockholders and Exxon executives in stock buybacks and dividends; less than $18 billion went to investments and exploration. So what we have is a cash machine for the current Exxon executives and owners, not a dynamic company pushing energy development and exploration.

Some legislators claim that we should let the free market work. If only we had a free market. When five companies dominate the gasoline market in Washington, the free market is only a rhetorical flourish. What we have is a market verging on a monopoly, totally unregulated, with businesses at their mercy. What that results in is a transfer of profits from businesses that have to pay the increased costs of fuel to the pockets of the energy giants.

So how could this revenue be spent? One idea is an across-the-board drop in the business and occupation tax, to enable employers to recoup some of their jacked-up fuel expenses. Another is to reimburse public K-12 schools, community colleges and public four-year colleges for their increased transportation and heating costs.

A third is to use the money to incubate our own renewable energy industry. We have all the ingredients to make this happen – farmers eager to raise canola and other crops for biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol, consumers who are eager and downright anxious to buy fuel raised in Washington, and fledging refiners for bio-fuel.

All they need is a push, and we can develop a new industry that will create clean fuel, good jobs and a product we can export. Then we won’t be addicted to oil!

John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.