boutons_deux
11-12-2015, 03:09 PM
The World’s Major Economies Pay More Than $450 Billion To Support The Fossil Fuel Industry
http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/12144543/oil-sub-1-638x542.jpg
The Obama administration has attempted to reign in fossil fuel subsidies by proposing cuts in every budget that the administration has sent to Congress, but that strategy has been met with opposition from (Repug) lawmakers.
Annually, the United States government gives out $20.5 billion to support the production of oil, coal, and gas, with $17.2 billion of that coming at the federal level and $3.3 billion coming at the state level.
A large percentage of the subsidies that fossil fuel companies receive in the United States comes in the form of tax breaks. Oil companies, for instance, are able to claim costs associated with cleaning up after an oil spill as a standard business expense. That means that of the when the U.S. attorney general fined BP with a $20.8 billion dollar settlement (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/06/3709435/bp-oil-spill-settlement-20-billion/) in October for its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP can legally claim a large portion of that settlement as a tax deductible business expense — only $5.5 billion of the fine cannot be classified as such.
Coal subsidies — though not as common as oil and gas subsidies — also help incentivize the production of fossil fuels in the United States. The Powder River Basin, the largest coal reserve in the United States, is not actually designated as a coal-producing region, allowing coal companies to lease federal lands at a lower cost than if the lands were designated as coal-producing.
That means that federal leases for the Powder River Basin are a really good deal (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/28/3616461/federal-coal-program-costing-billion/) for coal companies, saving them the equivalent of a $1 billion subsidy each year. Recent studies (http://www.carbontracker.org/report/coal-subsidies/) have argued that ending federal coal subsidies for the Power River Basin would significantly decrease production of coal in the region, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/12/3721677/g20-fossil-fuel-subsidies/
http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/12144543/oil-sub-1-638x542.jpg
The Obama administration has attempted to reign in fossil fuel subsidies by proposing cuts in every budget that the administration has sent to Congress, but that strategy has been met with opposition from (Repug) lawmakers.
Annually, the United States government gives out $20.5 billion to support the production of oil, coal, and gas, with $17.2 billion of that coming at the federal level and $3.3 billion coming at the state level.
A large percentage of the subsidies that fossil fuel companies receive in the United States comes in the form of tax breaks. Oil companies, for instance, are able to claim costs associated with cleaning up after an oil spill as a standard business expense. That means that of the when the U.S. attorney general fined BP with a $20.8 billion dollar settlement (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/06/3709435/bp-oil-spill-settlement-20-billion/) in October for its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP can legally claim a large portion of that settlement as a tax deductible business expense — only $5.5 billion of the fine cannot be classified as such.
Coal subsidies — though not as common as oil and gas subsidies — also help incentivize the production of fossil fuels in the United States. The Powder River Basin, the largest coal reserve in the United States, is not actually designated as a coal-producing region, allowing coal companies to lease federal lands at a lower cost than if the lands were designated as coal-producing.
That means that federal leases for the Powder River Basin are a really good deal (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/28/3616461/federal-coal-program-costing-billion/) for coal companies, saving them the equivalent of a $1 billion subsidy each year. Recent studies (http://www.carbontracker.org/report/coal-subsidies/) have argued that ending federal coal subsidies for the Power River Basin would significantly decrease production of coal in the region, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/12/3721677/g20-fossil-fuel-subsidies/