In The Media

Kate Aronoff

The Seven Sisters oil companies—now consolidated into ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron—relied on imperial concessions throughout much of the global south to maintain their cartel over some 85 percent of the world’s oil resources through much of the twentieth century. When local governments…

Published: Oct 21, 2020

David Roberts

Roberts' review of various estimates of US subsidies to fossil fuels included a section, excerpted below, on the analysis jointly done by SEI and Earth Track that was published in Nature Energy in 2017:..."The effects of consumption subsidies are fairly well-understood, as it is fairly easy to…

Published: Jul 26, 2018

Peter A. Bradford

Even as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz convened a “summit” to discuss more governmental assistance to the nation’s troubled nuclear power plants, the recent announcement by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that it is selling its northern Alabama site containing the unbuilt Bellefonte reactors…

Published: Jun 1, 2016

Max Ehrenfreund

..."Dominion Resources began work in October at Cove Point, the shipping terminal that the company plans to convert into an export facility for natural gas. The ambitious $3.8 billion project will involve about a thousand workers a year over several years.Dominion’s project is intensely…

Published: Dec 6, 2014

Ken Silverstein

Now that the U.S. Department of Energy has officially committed to a multi-million nuclear loan guarantee, it seems like a re-run of an old movie. If it does, readers are reminded that the “balloons” were first released in 2010 when the agency said it would loan $8.3 billion to help build the first…

Published: Feb 19, 2014

Jonathan Shapiro

A group of environmentalists says taxpayers should be worried about extending an $8 billion credit line to Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Augusta.To kickstart more nuclear development, the Obama administration in 2010 conditionally committed the government to the…

Published: Feb 5, 2013

Michael Bastasch

The Obama administration’s approval of a federal loan guarantee for the construction of two Georgia nuclear reactors was met with applause from across the political spectrum, but new analysis reveals potential Solyndra-like problems facing the project. “E-mails indicate periodic involvement by the…

Published: Jan 31, 2013

Matthew Wald

While no nuclear loan guarantees have been granted, one has nonetheless been promised to the companies now building the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors, near Augusta, Ga. It is not clear whether those builders, led by the Southern Company, will actually accept a federal guarantee; Southern says it has…

Published: Jan 31, 2013

Orlando Montoya and John A. Young

Environmental groups are crying foul on loan terms acquired by Southern Company for its Vogtle nuclear plant. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and others are calling for a greater degree of transparency in the federally-backed financing of the delayed and over-budget project.Anti-nuclear…

Published: Jan 30, 2013

Ken Silverstein

Three years after the U.S. Department of Energy approved an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to be used by Southern Co. and its partners to build two new nuclear reactors, the deal has yet to be finalized. A Georgia-based clean energy group says that the loan should shut down because it places…

Published: Jan 30, 2013

Mark Clayton

Construction of the first newly licensed US nuclear power plant in decades could become a "Solyndra-like" debacle thanks to billions in federal loan guarantees whose terms appear too weak to protect taxpayers, according to one group’s analysis of internal documents released by the US Department…

Published: Jan 30, 2013

SustainableBusiness.com News

The powerful fossil fuel interests that reap huge subsidies on the federal level have been doing the very same thing on the state level in the US. In many states, the coal, oil and natural gas industries are  among the most powerful industries, and have been benefiting from political deals for…

Published: Dec 21, 2012

Lisa Song

The oil industry has often said that dilbit, a heavy crude oil from Canada’s tar sands, isn’t much different from conventional crude oil. But when it comes to paying into a federal fund used to clean up oil spills, it’s different enough to deserve a sizeable tax break.Dilbit is exempt from the tax…

Published: Jul 31, 2012

Ronnie Greene and Matthew Mosk

Congressional critics cited Fisker’s bankruptcy filing as “yet another sad chapter” in DOE’s portfolio. “The jobs that were promised never materialized and, once again, taxpayers are on the hook for the administration’s reckless gamble,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-MI…

Published: Mar 6, 2012

Rob Lever

Doug Koplow of the policy consulting firm Earth Track said that the mandate is effectively another kind of subsidy for ethanol, and warns that it may be difficult to come up with new alternative fuels without adverse environmental impacts. While there has been some enthusiasm about biofuels from…

Published: Jan 15, 2012

James Kanter

...Moreover, citizens and companies that rely on fossil fuels usually do not pay the full cost of resulting environmental  problems like oil spills, sludge from coal mines and greenhouse gases, and for health problems from polluted air.Estimates of the cost of these effects — or “externalities” in…

Published: Oct 24, 2011

The Energy Information Administration’s latest report on federal energy subsidies, released Aug. 1, underreported direct and indirect federal subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, creating an inflated view of the subsidies that benefit renewable energy and efficiency programs,…

Published: Aug 3, 2011

Teri Sforza

Article provides a review of Earth Track's report on nuclear subsidies, prepared for UCS:If Uncle Sam and co. had bought power on the open market and given it away free, it would have cost less than subsidizing nuclear power plant construction and operation over the last 50 years, says a new study…

Published: Mar 11, 2011

Mark Clayton

Desperately seeking fiscal savings, Congress and President Obama are scrambling to find anything in the federal budget that can be thrown overboard, from child nutrition aid to funding for military bands.To some budget hawks cutting subsidies to mature and profitable energy industries is an…

Published: Mar 9, 2011

David Worthington

Article discusses Earth Track's report on nuclear subsidies, prepared for UCS:Nuclear power was supposed to be too cheap to meter, but a science-based nonprofit that advocates for environmental and public health issues has published a new report that casts doubt that it was ever really economically…

Published: Feb 11, 2011