Rezachek & Associates'
Energy & Environmental Resources

Energy Incentive Programs/Financing Alternatives

Energy Subsidies

A Global Guide to the Subsidies Jungle Subsidies are often not merely economically misguided, but also environmentally and socially counterproductive. They distort price relations and can lead to an inefficient allocation of financial and natural resources. Subsidisation is therefore rightly becoming a central theme in discussions of environmental policy.

FEEDING THE DINOSAURS: Billions in Govt. Handouts Going to Wealthy Oil Companies While the federal Liberal government cuts $7 billion this year from health, education and social assistance, it continues to lavish multi-billion-dollar subsidies on the major oil companies which are destroying wilderness areas and polluting the environment with acid rain, smog and greenhouse gases.

ENERGY COST SAVINGS PROGRAM (ECSP) Offers eligible businesses direct reductions in energy costs or tax credits up to 30 percent for electricity and 20 percent for natural gas. Space heating costs are not eligible. Benefits last 12 years and are phased out after the 8th year.

Energy Subsidies How do energy subsidies distort the energy market? The latest word on this topic is a report called "Federal Energy Subsidies: Energy, Environmental, and Fiscal Impacts" authored in 1993 by Douglas N. Koplow for the Alliance to Save Energy.

Energy Subsidies: Persian Gulf What about the cost of ships and troops to maintain our oil supply from the Persian Gulf? What does that cost?

Fueling Global Warming - Federal Subsidies to Oil in the United States Despite increasing concerns over climate change and other environmental consequences of our heavy reliance on oil, the U.S. government continues to subsidize the fuel. Subsidies to oil are provided to producers, transporters, and consumers in varied and often subtle ways. These subsidies not only cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year, but they often exacerbate environmental damage. They can also reduce oil prices, suppressing market signals to governments, oil consumers, and oil producers to begin shifting to alternatives.

Greenpeace Attacks European Energy Subsidies The environmental lobby Greenpeace attacked European governments for granting massive subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries in spite of their commitments to protect the environment. In spite of pledges to tackle global warming and protect the environment, western Europe spends almost $15 billion of taxpayers' money a year to subsidise ''mature, influential and environmentally damaging'' industries. But it give less than a tenth of that to developing emerging renewable energy technologies

Green Scissors '98 Every day taxpayer dollars are used to pollute our rivers, threaten our health, squander our natural assets, and create radioactive waste. In response to this waste of money and resources, organizations representing more than 8.5 million environmentalists, taxpayers, and deficit hawks have come together to say "enough is enough." The coalition's report, Green Scissors '98, recommends cutting 71 programs to protect the environment and save more than $49 billion.

Key Issues in Subsidy Policies and Strategies for Reform The subsidy guide has been used to identify subsidies in the energy, road transport, water and agricultural sector, covering both developed and developing countries. Not all subsidy components have been covered because of data limitations, but a table highlights the main results and presents our current estimates on the quantitative extent of subsidy policies in the four sectors. The magnitude suggests a severe addiction to subsidies in both developed and developing countries.

Lower Subsidies Can Help Economy While Reducing Emissions In October 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified over a dozen general policies which countries could implement to limit their greenhouse gas emissions (see IPCC Says Growth in CO2 Emissions Can be Deeply Reduced . Among these are energy pricing strategies, including lower energy subsidies.

Money Down the Pipeline: The Hidden Subsidies to the Oil Industry There is growing awareness in this country that the full cost of using oil for transportation is "subsidized" -- that is, gasoline prices paid by consumers do not reflect the full economic cost to society. The true cost is hidden by a myriad of direct and indirect public subsidies

Stop Oil Companies ... According to a report by the Department of the Interior, the American taxpayer has lost $856 million in unpaid royalties since 1991. The Department of the Interior is trying to issue a reform rule designed to ensure fairer oil royalty payments for the American taxpayer. Senators Domenici and Hutchison have attached a rider to the FY99 Interior Appropriations bill that would prevent this reform rule from being issued.

The Price of Power - Atomic Energy's Free Ride The 1992 Energy Policy Act guarantees that the U.S. government will continue to massively subsidize the nuclear power industry well into the next millennium. Given the opportunity to force nuclear companies to pay the cost of enriching the uranium that fuels their plants, Congress instead capped the companies liability for cleaning up uranium enrichment facilities at an amount far below the expected cost of decontamination. Given the chance to make the industry pay for disposal of its waste, Congress took steps to ensure that a proposed government-operated, government-subsidized radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada will go forward.

The Size of Subsidy Policies: How large are they? Key Issues in Subsidy Policies and Strategies for Reform The subsidy guide has been used to identify subsidies in the energy, road transport, water and agricultural sector, covering both developed and developing countries. Not all subsidy components have been covered because of data limitations, but table 1 highlights the main results and presents our current estimates on the quantitative extent of subsidy policies in the four sectors. The magnitude suggests a severe addiction to subsidies in both developed and developing countries.

THE SUBSIDY SCANDAL - The European clash between environmental rhetoric and public spending Close to $US15 billion of taxpayers' money has been used every year since 1990 to prop up the fossil fuel and nuclear industries in subsidies from the EU and Western European governments.

Want to Cut Energy Waste? ... Most Americans know there is something deeply irrational about US energy policy. Why doesn't Congress? In its budget cutting fever, Congress is missing the elephants, and going after the mice. Why? Because as usual, politics is really about economics. And economics is really about power. Proposed budget cuts for the Department of Energy, for example, take large bites (50%) out of Federal investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, and mere nibbles out of subsidies for fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and nuclear power.