Earth Track Blog

After my last post on the new subsidies to nuclear power, inquiries have started to come in on Obama's plan to end subsidies to fossil fuels. A common question is whether his plan would really end subsidies to fossil fuels entirely. The simple answer is "no". Although implementing their proposed...

With federal guarantees already on the table for up to 100% of project debt for new reactors ($18.5 billion) and front-end enrichment investments ($2 billion), the Obama administration's decision today to push for an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees to new reactors is puzzling. Taxpayer...

Check out CNN's Stimulus "Big Bang", a graphical representation of federal stimulus spending over the past year or so. You can click on the various elements to get additional details on the programs covered.What immediately struck me is their estimate that more than 80% of total support came through...

When I think of former Senator Pete Domenici, the first thing that pops into my mind is his long-standing, unwavering, and open-checkbooked support for nuclear power. A 2007 MSNBC article on him called him the "nuclear renaissance man," noting that he has "worked hard to subsidize the nuclear...

Judy Pasternak summarizes a sobering review of lobbying spending by US nuclear industry conducted by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. The total lobbying spending exceeded $600 million since 1999, with and additional $63 million in campaign contributions.Even with the old...

The US Supreme Court has just greatly loosened the restrictions on spending corporate cash on political candidates and elections. The onslaught of cash that will follow will, I suspect, suprise even the supporters of this change. More importantly, the web of obligations that this cash creates among...

With subsidy reform finally reaching the levels of the G20, I wanted to take a bit of time to acknowledge a number of recent transitions among people who have made important contributions to the state of knowledge in the subsidy arena.First, congratulations to Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth (FOE...

For years Armin Wagner and his team have toiled to pull together a consistent set of motor fuel prices from around the world. Though the work may not get the attention showered each year on the the Economist's "Big Mac" index, the GTZ analysis in my mind is far more important. GTZ tracks what is...

A central thrust in many of the energy-related legislative initiatives over the past few years has been a growing role for the federal government in funding and financing infrastructure for favored fuels. Some lessons from both energy and non-energy sectors highlight the problems with this approach...

Like favorite sports teams, affinity for particular energy types seems to run deep. Geography clearly plays a role: it is not surprising that Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Richard Lugar (Indiana) have long been staunch supporters of biofuels, and corn ethanol in particular. The two have proposed...

Ethanol Producer Magazine notes that the "industry optimistically awaits E15 waiver decision." Faced with market mandates that drive up demand for all the ethanol they produced, but technical constraints on how much they can stick in each gallon of gasoline we buy, the industry has one again worked...

How frustrating to be on the verge of a nuclear renaissance, with only that little problem of economic viability getting in the way. To listen to industry advocate Matthew Bennett at Third Way describe it, the economics problem is merely the "last straw" of for nuclear opponents who have lost all of...

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a Washington, DC-based organization focused on improved transparency in government budgeting and spending, has just completed a nice summary of the state-of-play in federal oil and gas royalty subsidies. Royalties are the payments that private firms make to the...

I've never met Franny Armstrong, though her brother is a good friend and I certainly admire her dedication to doing something about climate change. But getting rescued by the Mayor of London, on his bike no less, is a story too good to pass on. Thankfully Franny was not hurt. And, yet a bit shaken...

Another good catch by Steve Mufson at the Washington Post on the world of subsidies. Mufson earlier did great work to expose the games Congress was playing on loan guarantees to "advanced" energy to boost the level of credit support that would ultimately be available to large scale power producers...

Starting a conversation about leakage immediately makes people uncomfortable. Their gaze shifts to floor, and it is clear they are hoping the speaker will have the good sense to avoid the rather uncomfortable topic addressed by the smiling actors in a Depends undergarments commercial. Rest assured...

As government interventions in US energy markets grow by leaps and bounds, some of the core principles that made the US an economic superpower are being forgotten. These include using price signals to guide allocation of capital; aligning incentives such that promoters have enough "skin" in the game...

While subsidies to fossil fuels are thankfully getting increasing attention, even at the level of the G20 (see paragraphs 24-26 of the link), subsidies to a variety of environmentally harmful activities are pervasive at lower levels of government as well. An Earth Track review of state-level...

We are excited to welcome you to the new Earth Track web site. In addition to much better visuals, the site is structured to make it easier for people interested in environmentally harmful subsidies to share information on new work you are doing, and to track subsidy recipients around the world. We...

This blog is about environmentally harmful subsidies: what they are, where they come from, how you measure them, how you make others disclose them, and just maybe how you can get rid of them.I should say I'll be writing mostly about environmentally harmful subsidies, because some other stuff will...