Army of Accountants?

When Governor Rendell proposed a new tax on oil profits, he claimed the cost “would not be passed on to consumers,” and that the Attorney General would have the power to enforce such an order. But as Capitolwire.com (subscription) reports, Attorney General Tom Corbett has no idea how he is supposed to do that:

During a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Corbett said he has yet to see legislation or hear from the governor’s office about how Rendell would achieve that.

“We were not consulted beforehand, we were given no legal opinions as to how to do it, we’ve come up with no legislation, [and] we’ve received no proposed legislation for our thoughts on how it might pass constitutional muster,” Corbett told the committee.

Corbett later said: “It would probably take an army of accountants and auditors to make sure that they [oil companies] weren’t passing on [the tax] in some way, shape or form.