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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Report: Fossil-Fuel Tax Breaks Also Fuel Climate Change

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Wednesday, October 4, 2017   

DENVER - As Washington grapples with rebooting the nation's tax code, a new report makes a compelling argument for eliminating tax breaks for the fossil-fuel industry.

Senior scientist Peter Erickson, the study's lead author, said market forces - like current oil prices - would prevent industry from tapping reserves that scientists warn need to stay in the ground to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. However, Erickson said, taxpayer-funded subsidies are tilting the scale in favor of more drilling.

"Just these subsidies that we looked at would bring on about 6 (billion) or 7 billion tons of CO2," he said. "That's about 20 percent of all the oil that we could produce between now and 2050."

The study, by the Stockholm Environment Institute and Earth Track, found that nearly half of all known U.S. oil reserves are dependent on subsidies. Erickson said pollution from those reserves would put a big dent in the nation's carbon budget, the total amount of fuel that can be burned while keeping global temperatures below dangerous levels.

Industry groups have argued that tax breaks are necessary to keep and create jobs.

Researchers found that when oil prices are down, tax breaks prop up returns for investors. Erickson said that when prices go up, the subsidies flow directly into a company's overall profits.

"These dollars are not going to greater wages or to greater jobs," he said. "Most of the value of these subsidies goes directly to corporate profits, over and above what they already need in order to employ people on the ground."

Erickson said tax breaks could be used to create jobs in industries with better long-term prospects. He pointed to this week's announcement by General Motors to switch to 100 percent electric vehicles and China's decision to ban cars that use diesel.

"The way we structure our tax code really reflects our priorities as a country," he said. "Are we going to subsidize things that give us a better future, or are we going to subsidize the old industries that are creating lots of pollution?"

The prospect for cutting subsidies remains uncertain. A separate report by Oil Change International found that in the 2015-2016 election cycle, oil, gas and coal companies invested $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and got nearly $30 billion in federal subsidies, a return of more than 8,000 percent.

The Stockholm report is online at sei-international.org and the OCI report is at priceofoil.org.


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