Jean-Marc Burniaux, Jean Chateau and Jehan Sauvage
Posted on:
9/8/2011
This report draws on previous OECD work to assess the impact on international trade of phasing out fossil fuel consumption subsidies provided mainly by developing and emerging economies. The analysis employed the OECD’s ENV-Linkages General-Equilibrium model and used the IEA’s estimates of consumer…
The UK operates 19 reactors that provided 15.7% of the country's electricity needs in 2010. The cost of supplying this electricity is cheap. The big six electricity suppliers make their profit from an industry which provides poor value for money to the taxpayer and leaves us with a toxic legacy that…
Autumn Hanna, Eli Lehrer, Benjamin Schreiber, and Tyson Slocum
Posted on:
8/29/2011
This year's Green Scissors report offers lawmakers and the public a starting place for spending reductions, including cuts to discretionary, mandatory and tax spending that also increase environmental protection. Perhaps even more importantly, Green Scissors 2011 offers a roadmap for how Congress…
Administered by the Department of Energy (DOE), the loan guarantee program encourages private investment in nuclear energy by lowering the cost of borrowing and possibly increasing the availability of credit for project sponsors—usually an individual utility, a consortium of utilities, or a…
Numerous energy subsidies exist in the U.S. tax code and have been there for up to a century. In certain cases the circumstances relevant at the time of implementation may no longer exist. Today, for example, the domestic fossil fuel industries (coal, oil, natural gas) are mature and highly…
Margaret Sheehan, Samantha Chirillo, Josh Schlossberg, William Sammons, Matt Leonard, Energy Justice Network
Posted on:
7/11/2011
American taxpayers and ratepayers are subsidizing a form of “renewable” energy—biomass electricity- that causes short and long-term harm to the public health and the environment. There are 234 of these so-called “clean and green” biomass electricity projects proposed for the U.S. The scale of these…
Despite surging prices for energy and other commodities, the vast majority of materials generated in the United States continues to be thrown away in landfills or burned in incinerators. This Webinar, prepared for the Product Stewardship Institute in Boston, provides an overview of the importance…
Quoting a joint analysis made by the OECD and the IEA, G20 Leaders committed in September 2009 to "rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption." This analysis was based on the OECD ENV-Linkages General Equilibrium model and…
During World War I, U.S. taxpayers provided the oil and gas industry with its first federal tax break. Over the decades, more lucrative tax breaks have been added. The latest major installment came with the passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which included another $2.6 billion in subsidies for…
Earth Track presentation at the Biofuels Policy Forum briefing on April 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. The document provides an overview of the historical and projected level of subsidization to biofuels, and why this policy is not an efficient way to address concerns over greenhouse gas emissions or…
Earth Track's submitted comments on the National Academy of Sciences' upcoming analysis on the effects of the federal tax code on greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions. The comments cover a variety of issues on subsidy valuation and presentation that have arisen during more than twenty years of work in…
There are two basic international legal frameworks contributing to an international regime on nuclear liability: The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 1963 Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (Vienna Convention), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s…
Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Energy
Posted on:
3/24/2011
The goal of the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program (Program), as defined in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is to provide Federal support, in the form of loan guarantees, to spur commercial investments in clean energy projects that use innovative technologies. The Department estimates that…
Not a document for the faint-of-heart, but one of the best resources for learning about the vast array of federal tax provisions that are now doling out more than a trillion dollars of special exemptions for various groups in the economy. A good book to tuck under your arm when you head out to the…
Conspicuously absent from industry press releases and briefing memos touting nuclear power’s potential as a solution to global warming is any mention of the industry’s long and expensive history of taxpayer subsidies and excessive charges to utility ratepayers. These subsidies not only enabled the…
Democratic Staff, Committee on Natural Resources, US House of Representatives
Posted on:
2/3/2011
The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Natural Resources of the U.S. House of Representatives provides a review of recent oil industry profits and examines the tab for some of the more visible tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. In addition to looking a gross industry profits, the report…
Discussion of fiscal regimes for oil extraction have traditionally focused on the total charges of all sorts levied on a project (the "total government take"), and whether their level and structure optimised oil production and public revenues. Yet national, or global, policies to meet energy and…
Government subsidy programs, like many areas of government expenditure, are at risk of corruption and fraud that cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The extent to which these two factors affect subsidy policy is difficult to fully estimate because it is not commonly detected or reported to official…