The Financial Economist's Roundtable (FER) believes that use of FCRA accounting rules to calculate the budgetary costs of federal credit programs has resulted in the systematic understatement of the cost of these programs. This distortion occurs because of the failure of FCRA rules to account for…
The Government of India spent over US$ 9 billion subsidizing fuel products – diesel, kerosene, LPG and, to a lesser extent, gasoline – in 2010-11. The Government’s total subsidy expenditure (including for food and fertilizer) increased by nearly 27% in 2011-12, significantly contributing to the…
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…
Table summarizing the ways G20 member countries have defined reportable subsidies to fossil fuels, and the gaps these definitions open up to missing entire classes of government support to the fossil fuels sector. The table has been extracted from Phasing Out Fossil-Fuel Subsidies in the G20: A…
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…
In this, our second review of progress in meeting this phase out commitment (an earlier review was published in November 2010), we reviewed formal submittals by member countries to the G20 and the WTO, reached out individually to staff from each member country, and reviewed third-party assessments…
The nonproliferation principles we propose are intended to establish a framework for dealing with the main deficiencies in current NPT regime. These are: the notion that countries could amass the means for a weapons program under the NPT and the withdraw on 90-days notice; the idea that the…
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…
David P. Vogt, Susan M. Schexnayder, Tom N. Yoder, Edward J. Lapsa, Alexandra T. Brewer
Posted on:
5/2/2012
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…
The policy of maintaining tight control of domestic energy prices has characterized the political and economic environment in most Arab countries, together with many other parts of the world, for decades. The objectives behind such a policy range from overall welfare objectives such as expanding…
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…
The value of the Russian government’s support to the upstream oil and gas activities is very significant. The subsidies to oil and gas producers in Russia that have been identified and quantified in this report amounted to 4.2 per cent and 6.0 per cent of the total value of oil and gas production in…
Earth Track review of data from the Louisiana State Bond Commission
Posted on:
3/26/2012
The ability to issue tax-exempt Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds ended in 2011. Because the interest on the bonds is not taxed, the interest rates paid on these bonds is lower than would otherwise be the case. This tabulation provides a full summary of the applications and issuance of bond capacity…
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…
This analysis provides the first detailed accounting of oil and gas subsidies in Norway. The report finds that Norwegian government provided 25.5 billion Norwegian kroner (US$4 billion) in subsidies for upstream oil and gas activities in 2009.
The report uses the internationally recognized definition…
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…
Paul R. Epstein, Jonathan J. Buonocore, Kevin Eckerle, Michael Hendryx, Benjamin M. Stout III, Richard Heinberg, Richard W. Clapp, Beverly May, Nancy L. Reinhart, Melissa M. Ahern, Samir K. Doshi, and Leslie Glustrom
Posted on:
12/29/2011
Each stage in the life cycle of coal—extraction, transport, processing, and combustion—generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus often considered “externalities.”We estimate that the life cycle…
For decades, wealthy countries have been using international aid and other foreign assistance—through grants, loans, equity and loan guarantees—to subsidize the expansion of the international fossil fuel industry. Many of these institutions provide export insurance as well.
Pennsylvania is subsidizing fossil fuels at a cost of almost $2.9 billion per year. Use of these fuels burdens taxpayers with additional non-monetized externalities such as air, land and water pollution and the associated negative human health and property impacts. Since many of these subsidies…
Burning Public Money for Dirty Energy presents an overview of how U.S. energy policies are creating a range of subsidies for municipal waste incineration (MSW) projects, including emerging waste burning technologies of gasification, pyrolysis and plasma arc incineration. This report also identifies…
