Resource Library of Subsidy Documents

During World War I, U.S. taxpayers provided the oil and gas industry with its first federal tax break. Over the decades, more lucrative tax breaks have been added. The latest major installment came with the passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which included another $2.6 billion in subsidies for…

Earth Track presentation at the Biofuels Policy Forum briefing on April 14, 2011 in Washington, DC.  The document provides an overview of the historical and projected level of subsidization to biofuels, and why this policy is not an efficient way to address concerns over greenhouse gas emissions or…

Earth Track's submitted comments on the National Academy of Sciences' upcoming analysis on the effects of the federal tax code on greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions. The comments cover a variety of issues on subsidy valuation and presentation that have arisen during more than twenty years of work in…

There are two basic international legal frameworks contributing to an international regime on nuclear liability: The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 1963 Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (Vienna Convention), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s…

The goal of the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program (Program), as defined in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is to provide Federal support, in the form of loan guarantees, to spur commercial investments in clean energy projects that use innovative technologies. The Department estimates that…

This is the Executive Summary only.  For the full report, click here.  Report description can be accessed here.

Not a document for the faint-of-heart, but one of the best resources for learning about the vast array of federal tax provisions that are now doling out more than a trillion dollars of special exemptions for various groups in the economy.  A good book to tuck under your arm when you head out to the…

Conspicuously absent from industry press releases and briefing memos touting nuclear power’s potential as a solution to global warming is any mention of the industry’s long and expensive history of taxpayer subsidies and excessive charges to utility ratepayers. These subsidies not only enabled the…

The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Natural Resources of the U.S. House of Representatives provides a review of recent oil industry profits and examines the tab for some of the more visible tax breaks to the oil and gas industry.  In addition to looking a gross industry profits, the report…

Discussion of fiscal regimes for oil extraction have traditionally focused on the total charges of all sorts levied on a project (the "total government take"), and whether their level and structure optimised oil production and public revenues.  Yet national, or global, policies to meet energy and…

Government subsidy programs, like many areas of government expenditure, are at risk of corruption and fraud that cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The extent to which these two factors affect subsidy policy is difficult to fully estimate because it is not commonly detected or reported to official…

Keynote presentation at the OECD's expert workshop on estimating subsidies to fossil fuels, held in November 2010. 

This is the second detailed report on fossil fuel subsidies prepared by the assigned agencies to support the G20 subsidy phase-out commitment.  It was prepared to support the November 2010 meeting of the G20 in South Korea.  The report estimates the scope of fossil-fuel subsidies in 2009 and…

Earth Track presentation on fossil fuel subsidy reform at a joint meeting hosted by the Global Subsidies Initiative of the IISD and the United Nations Environment Programme in Geneva in October 2010, titled Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform: Developments and Opportunities.  The…

By providing a longitudinal perspective on energy tax policy and expenditures, this report examines how current revenue losses resulting from energy tax provisions compare to historical losses and provides a foundation for understanding how current energy tax policy evolved.  Further, this report…

In its September 2009 Communiqué from Pittsburgh, the G20 nations (“Group of Twenty” nations that include the largest economies in the world) committed to “rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.”

The G20 commitment was…

This joint report to the G20 Finance Ministers and Leaders was issued by the IEA, OPEC, OECD and World Bank in response to a request by G20 Leaders when they met in Pittsburgh in September 2009. At that time, leaders agreed to “rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel…

The ability to undertake any meaningful subsidy reforms, either nationally or multilaterally, is hampered by a basic lack of knowledge about the extent of support to the sector and where information on this support might be held. This multi-country research effort identifying and classifying…

DOE has taken steps to implement the Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) for applicants but has treated applicants inconsistently and lacks mechanisms to identify and address their concerns. Among other things, DOE increased the LGP’s staff, expedited procurement of external reviews, and developed…

This document is addressed primarily to those individuals who are interested in preparing estimates of subsidies to particular products or sectors—people who engage in what might be called “subsidy accounting.”  Unlike financial accounting for the business sector, or public-sector accounting for…