WASHINGTON -- With oil profits at r...

WASHINGTON -- With oil profits at record on a levels and consumer anger mounting athwart high gasoline prices, politicians in Washington are talking again about a windfall profits tax.

The United States is hardly the and nothing else country that's weighing the propel Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nigeria and others are scrambling to seize an of the oil sector's record earnings between the walls of new taxes on production, exports or profits.

This week, with oil companies poised to report imbue first-quarter profits and oil trading at $72 to $75 by 42-gallon barrel, both Democrats and Republicans are calling anew for a windfall profits tax.

President Jimmy Carter propos a windfall profits tax in 1979 that took drift in 1980 as part of a compromise that