The Tax Foundation says that Obama is taking the populist road in this new ad where he pitches a windfall profits tax on evil oil companies:

Obama seeks to impose a tax on the windfall profits of oil companies, which he implies in the advertisement is the cause of the high prices at the pump. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't work that way. The CEO of Shell doesn't get up one morning wanting to raise gas prices and say "I'm going to screw the American consumer today so my company's shareholders will get a greater return." And then the next morning when he wants to lower prices say, "I slept well last night and feel good this morning so I'm going to lower prices for the American people even if it cost my shareholders."

The oil companies have reaped a lot of gain from the recent rise in oil prices. There is no disputing that. And a windfall profits tax in the short-run would do little to change the price of gasoline, and would push money into government's coffers. However, in the long-run, by telling the oil companies that if they have higher than average profits in any given period they will be taxed extra on those profits, then that tax affects business investment for the future. That, in turn, lowers investment in oil, raising the price at the pump, lowering wages, and lowering returns to investors.

The fact of the matter is that Obama would be more accurate if he said that his foreign policy would help lower gas prices given that recent tensions in the Middle East have played a larger role in raising the price. Unfortunately, Obama is merely engaging in nonsensical political rhetoric by targeting the current outcomes of the energy markets instead of the underlying causes.

[UPDATE] This is funny. Obama claims that he doesn't take contributions from oil companies. FactCheck claims that he has taken $213,000 from employees of oil companies and their spouses and that two individuals that work for him are executives at oil companies that have raised some where between "$50,000 and $100,000" for Obama.