They are correcting a defect in the previous legislation. The legislation provided tax breaks to companies for drilling and exploration when oil prices were around $10/barrel, and was supposed to include a clause that said if oil prices went over $35/barrel the subsidy stopped. The GOP congress knew about this, and refused to amend the law, in return for huge contributions from the oil industry. As for the completely misinformed notion that this will be "passed on to the consumer", please note that the oil companies used their windfall profits to pay huge dividends, they didn't increase drilling or build refineries, they just divided up the cash because they had more cash than they could use.