re: "government does not profit"
The purpose of taxing energy is not to cull profits from profligate energy use, but to make profligate energy use unprofitable. A graduated and ratcheted energy tax in the 70s would have quickly encouraged consumers to conserve, and companies to provide more energy efficient automobiles and appliances. And it could have been done with a lot less pain then that it will require now. It would have gradually encouraged alternate energy sources, conservation, efficiency, and non-energy solutions to problems, like having people move closer to work and building structures that did not require air conditioning in the dead of winter because they were cheaper to build that way.
Well, business got its way. And it profited mightily.