Page 201 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

60 Renewable electricity (34)
Direct spending Tax breaks Biofuels (19)
Billions of dollars spent, 2002–2008 40 Fossil-fuel (197)
50

30
Oil
electricity
(105)
20
10
(96)
Coal (3) Natural gas
0
Fossil Carbon Corn Renewable
fuels capture ethanol energy
(a) U.S. energy subsidies (b) Global energy subsidies
Figure 7.14 The well-established fossil fuel industries receive more subsidies than the young and
struggling renewable energy industries, both (a) in the United States (from 2002 to 2008) and (b) globally
(from 2007 to 2010). Data from: (a) Environmental Law Institute, 2009. Estimating U.S. government subsidies to energy sources:
2002–2008. ELI, Washington, D.C.; and (b) International Energy Agency.
In the United States, how many dollars in total subsidies go to fossil fuels for every dollar that goes to
renewable energy (excluding corn ethanol)?

gave $72 billion of its citizens’ money—$240 from each man, enacted, the U.S. government has given away nearly $250 bil-
woman, and child—to fossil fuel corporations (three-quarters of lion of mineral resources, and mining activities have polluted
this in the form of tax breaks), while providing just $29 billion more than 40% of watersheds in the West. The 140-year-old
to renewable energy (Figure 7.14a). Moreover, most of the sub- law still allows mining companies to buy public lands for $5
sidies for renewable energy went toward corn ethanol, which is or less per acre.
not widely viewed as a sustainable fuel (pp. 587–588). On the U.S. national forests, the U.S. Forest Service
One recent study calculated that from 1918 to the pre- spends $35 million of taxpayer money each year building
sent, oil and gas have received 75 times more subsidies than roads to allow private timber corporations access to cut trees,
new renewable energy sources in the United States, and 13 which the companies then sell at a profit (Figure 7.15).
times more on a per-year basis (p. 603). Internationally in Advocates of sustainable resource use have long urged
the period 2007–2010, fossil fuel energy subsidies out- governments to subsidize only environmentally sustainable
paced renewable energy subsidies by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1,
according to calculations by the International Energy Agency
(Figure 7.14b). Figure 7.15 When companies extract timber from U.S.
In 2009, President Obama and other leaders of the Group national forests, taxpayers pay the costs of building and
of 20 (G-20) nations resolved to gradually phase out their col- maintaining access roads. “By absorbing these costs, the
lective $300 billion of annual fossil fuel subsidies. Doing so federal government shields the timber industry from the true cost of
would hasten a shift to cleaner renewable energy sources and doing business,” the nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense
accomplish half the greenhouse gas emissions cuts needed to concludes.
hold global warming to 2°C. However, since that time, fossil
fuel subsidies have grown, not shrunk, rising by one estimate
to $775 billion in 2012. A prime reason is that consumers have
grown used to artificially low subsidized prices for gasoline
and electricity and would punish policymakers who try to lift
the subsidies. Economists are now trying to design feasible
and politically palatable means of shifting subsidies from fos-
sil fuels to renewable energy sources or toward rebates to tax-
payers.
Many other environmentally harmful subsidies exist.
Under the General Mining Act of 1872 (pp. 191, 664), mining
companies extract $500 million to $1 billion in minerals from
U.S. public lands each year without paying a penny in royal-
200 ties to the taxpayers who own these lands. Since this law was

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