Consumer advocate proponents of an initiative to tax oil companies have submitted twice the required number of signatures to the Secretary of State’s office, virtually assuring the measure will be on the November ballot.

The California Clean Energy Campaign, spearheaded by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a consumer advocacy group, has submitted nearly1.2 million signatures to the Secretary of State’s office, double the required 598,000.

The California Clean Alternative Energy Initiative would levy a tax of anywhere between 1.5 percent to 6 percent on producers of oil extracted in California, depending on the price of a barrel of oil. The initiative specifies that $4 billion of that money would be spent over 10 years to fund research and production incentives for alternative energy, alternative fuel vehicles and energy conservation measures.

“California motorists are paying 50 cents more per gallon of gasoline than the U.S. average,” said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. “At the same time, oil companies are reporting record profits. The only way to break this cycle of profiteering and price gouging is for the state to create cheaper and cleaner alternatives to the refiners’ stranglehold on the market It’s time for Big Oil companies to pay their fair share.”

Opponents of the initiative, including business organizations and oil companies, issued a statement earlier in the week calling the measure the “wrong approach” towards promotion of alternative fuels.

“It would increase California’s already high gasoline prices, create a new state bureaucracy with little accountability and rob schools of their fair share of tax revenues,” said Al Lundeen, spokesman for Californians Against Higher Taxes.