Earth Track Document

Complex security, environmental, and economic trade-offs remain the norm for the energy sector.   Government intervention is also the norm, and too often involves a torrent of energy plans, white-papers, and legislation.  In an ideal world, government policies should work in tandem with market forces to achieve an adequate energy supply mix that is cleaner and more diverse than what preceded it.  These synergies do not currently exist.  Instead, there are thousands of government energy market interventions in place around the world - many of which act counter to stated energy securi

Large natural gas finds off the coast of Israel create significant financial and energy challenges for a State long focused on high technology exports and alternative energy development.  To address these concerns, Israel has already implemented study commissions and proposed a Sovereign Wealth Fund (the "Citizens of Israel Fund").  This paper reviews the proposed structure of the Fund and a number of other core issues related to the gas finds such as how much to export, how to deploy revenues, and how the development will affect energy security.  It makes the following recommendat

Keynote presentation at the Expert Workshop on Subsidies to Fossil Fuels and Climate Mitigation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), held at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC on January 14, 2014.  Slides review recent global estimates of fossil fuel subsidies, highlighting both the tallies and the reasons the estimates differ widely from one another. 

Special legislative provisions have allowed a select group of industries to operate as tax-favored publicly-traded partnerships (PTPs) more than 25 years after Congress stripped eligibility for most sectors of the economy. These firms, organized as Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), are heavily concentrated in the oil and gas industry. Selective access to valuable tax preferences distorts energy markets and creates impediments for substitute, non-fossil, forms of power, heating, and transport fuels.

Hundreds of documents released from DOE under a Freedom of Information Request and subsequent litigation shed new light onto DOE's management of an $8.33 billion loan guarantee on offer to support the construction of two new nuclear units at the Vogtle reactor in Georgia.  The documents raise questions about how project risks were screened, the loan terms in the conditional committment agreement provided by DOE, the adequacy of the credit subsidy payments from borrowers to the US Treasury under the deal, and involvement by political appointees focused on getting the deal done.

Presentation at the 124th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners for a panel entitled "How Should Subsidies be Crafted to Ensure Usefulness as an Effective Tool to Achieve Energy Policy Objectives."  The presentation discussed the range of energy subsidies, commonly ignored market supports to conventional fuels, and ways to improve subsidy efficiency.  Other presentations on the panel can be accessed here.

Although data on fossil fuel subsidies around the world have been growing, most of this information focuses on national level policies.  The thousands of subsidies at the state, provincial or local levels are largely untracked -- with little visibility either in the United States or in most other countries of the world. 

Despite a stated commitment to using market forces, the Romney campaign is turning a blind eye to large and distortionary subsidies to conventional fuels.  This review highlights problems with how Romney has framed the energy subsidy problem and highlights important subsidies to fossil fuels that he has ignored.