Webinar slides prepared for the Vote Solar Initiative to provide an overview of fossil fuel subsidies. The presentation discusses the informational gaps that often plague numbers on fossil fuel subsidies reported in the press, and provides a number of frameworks and tools to help Vote Solar members to more comprehensively assess that subsidies that competing projects may be receiving.
This report is the latest of a string of assessments produced over the past 18 years to identify and quantify federal subsidies that harm the environment as well as waste prodigious amounts of money. The exact coalition producing the reports varies a bit year-to-year, but the Green Scissors Campaign has always been a collaboration between budget and environmental groups aimed at eliminating wasteful spending that is harmful to the environment.
For the past decade imports of tar sands crude oil or bitumen have been increasing. Tar sands is stripmined and drilled in an energy‐and water‐intensive process from under the Boreal forests and wetlands of Alberta. In the process, Canada is destroying critical habitat while releasing three times the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil production.
A mixed portfolio of energy options has allowed Americans to enjoy long-term economic growth and prosperity. The federal government has engaged directly in developing each energy resource in the mix, although the dollar value estimates of this federal support vary considerably. This report focuses on solar power, evaluating the diffusion of solar energy technology in the United States in the context of the technology adoption process and federal engagement in developing energy options.
Using an open architecture approach, the Energy Tax Breaks Wiki hopes to tabulate information on the applicablity and value of various federal tax breaks to energy in the United States. The site is a joint project of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law and the Center for Land Use and Environmental Responsibility at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.
The ability to issue tax-exempt Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds ended in 2011.
The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project, like all oil industry projects, benefits from substantial taxpayer subsidies. Some, like reduced property taxes, are directed at the pipeline itself. Others increase the viability of the pipeline by reducing the cost of the oil going into it, or the cost of processing it at the other end.
We all remember the Indiana Jones movie, where Evil Nazi Guy picks the wrong Holy Grail? Historically, the feds have chosen poorly too, says energy subsidy analyst Doug Koplow. Take biofuels: Washington has poured millions into energy from plants -- even though Koplow says the planting process can eliminate forests and land for growing food. A net minus to the planet.
Doug Koplow of the policy consulting firm Earth Track said that the mandate is effectively another kind of subsidy for ethanol, and warns that it may be difficult to come up with new alternative fuels without adverse environmental impacts.
While there has been some enthusiasm about biofuels from switchgrass, cornstalks and algae, Koplow said, "I think people are painting that as too rosy a picture."