First of all, as to the politicians, you're right...roughly seventy cents of the price you pay for a gallon of gas is taxes.

Secondly, the idea of pollution or global warming causing more severe hurricanes is scientifically unsound.  Even if one were to accept the premise that human activity is warming the atmosphere to a significant degree (which I do not), the effect would cause the polar icecaps to melt, forcing colder water into the equatorial regions of the oceans, thereby having the opposite effect of actually reducing the number of hurricanes.

The fact is that the warmer ocean temperatures are more a result of increased sunspot activity than anything we poor, irrational humans could do. 

Or it could be that Dick Cheney and Halliburton seeded those clouds in just the right spot over the Atlantic...hmmmm.