Finds that, at recent oil prices of $50 per barrel, tax subsidies push nearly half of new, yet-to-be-developed oil investments into profitability, potentially increasing US oil production by 17 billion barrels over the next few decades.
Would have amended several sections of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to eliminate subsidies aimed specifically at the fossil fuel industry.
Would amend the Internal Revenue Code to replace the 44 existing energy tax credits with three technology neutral tax provisions that would incentivize the use of low and zero emissions technologies.
Identifies eight different active direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies in the tax code, as well as recent legislative efforts to eliminate them.
Identifies twelve provisions in the tax code that subsidize activities associated with the production of fossil fuels that impose an estimated $41.4 billion ten-year revenue loss on the federal treasury.
Details an internationally accepted methodology that will help countries make their fossil fuel subsidies more transparent.
Catalogs federal and state fossil fuel subsidies, and identifies opportunities to eliminate them. Appendix 1 provides a complete list of U.S. federal and state fossil fuel production subsidies, which it argues amount to approximately $20 billion.
The U.S.’s 2015 report to the OECD catalogs producer and consumer subsidies for fossil fuels and argues that fossil fuel subsidies in the U.S. amount to roughly $8.7 billion.