HARRISBURG -- Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday called on President Bush to slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies as a way to offset skyrocketing gasoline prices for consumers.

"It is simply bad economic policy to let profiteering continue unabated,'' he said at a news conference held at an Exxon/Mobil gasoline station two blocks from the Capitol.

"Skyrocketing gasoline prices spill over quickly into other markets and impact the price of every petroleum-based consumer good, diminishing consumers' spending power,'' he said.

Mr. Rendell drove to the news conference even though the gas station was close to the Capitol. He said he was running behind schedule on a busy day and didn't have time to walk.

Mr. Rendell said gasoline prices have nearly doubled since he took office in 2003, rising from $1.51 a gallon then to about $3 a gallon in most places in Pennsylvania now.

He said that in 1999, U.S. oil refiners earned 22.8 cents for every gallon of gas refined from crude oil. That profit jumped in 2004 to 40.8 cents for every gallon refined, with profit margins soaring last year to 99 cents per refined gallon.

Mr. Rendell was flanked by large signs decrying "record oil company profits in 2005," listing Exxon/Mobil at $36.1 billion, Chevron at $14.4 billion and Conoco/Philips at $13.5 billion. He also criticized oil company executives for taking huge bonuses and salaries as low-income wage earners couldn't afford to drive to work.

Mr. Rendell didn't spell out how his proposed windfall profits tax would work, but later suggested something like U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, has proposed.

It would place a 50 percent tax on profits earned by oil companies on oil sold above $50 a barrel. Oil is now selling for about $75 a barrel.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., also proposed a windfall profits tax over the weekend.

"We've got to get tough about it,'' Mr. Specter said. "It's just intolerable the way the prices are going up.''

Mr. Rendell put a different twist on his plan. Instead of putting the revenue raised by the windfall profits tax back into the U.S. treasury, as many politicians have suggested, Mr. Rendell would segregate the revenue into a special account and redistribute it to American drivers next year based on how many miles they can prove they've driven.

Mr. Rendell noted that some Democrats had called on Mr. Bush in September to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies, after gas prices shot up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but Mr. Bush refused.