Analysis of Selected Provisions in Hurricane Sandy Emergency Spending Proposals
December 17, 2012
Subsidizing Oil Shale: Tracing Federal Support for Oil Shale Development in the United States
November 29, 2012
The Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee program carries extremely high taxpayer risk, potentially jeopardizing billions of taxpayer dollars if energy project loans default....
Several administrative changes could be implemented to reduce taxpayer costs and limit the unintended consequences of federal crop insurance. ...
The final agreement signed by the president to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” contains several items related to transportation that...
At the 11th hour lawmakers and the White House agreed to a deal on the fiscal cliff. While the deal was crafted to address urgent tax...
Since the early 20th century, the federal government and private industry have attempted to commercialize oil shale but after years of...
With fiscal cliff looming, TCS calls for end to government handouts for failed oil shale experiments....
The so-called Farm Bill currently being negotiated in Congress is shaping up to be another taxpayer-funded handout to wealthy landowners,...
Federally subsidized crop insurance has become the largest taxpayer support for agriculture. But not all parts of the agriculture...
A basic primer on the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program and answers general questions on the history, administration, and overall effect of the program....
The Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation that guides food and farm policy. It covers wide-ranging topics from rural broadband service to farm subsidy payments....
The agricultural safety net refers to the various federal programs and policies that insulate agricultural producers from the costs of conducting business....
A basic primer on the Green Scissors campaign and answers general questions about the history and goals of the coalition....
In the summer of 2011, Congress sent the President a bill that acknowledged failure. Instead of swallowing hard and coming up with...
Coal-fired energy production is one of the oldest and most profitable industries in the world. Yet despite decades of success, the well-established coal industry remains on the federal dole. ...
(Originally Posted December 2011, Most Recent Update: September 2012)
In 2008, Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC applied for a $1.7 billion...
H.J. Res. 117 — Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2013 was released this morning (9/11/2012). TCS staff will be posting relevant documents and analysis as we digest this proposal over the coming days....
Taxpayers for Common Sense awarded the Golden Fleece to Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) for introducing H.R. 4342, the WAVE4 Act. This legislation would codify recommendations made by barge operators to increase the federal subsidy for inland waterway construction projects on the nation's rivers....
The first half of 2012 has brought more multi-billion dollar profits for major oil companies. So far, these companies have raked in more...
While the program was intended for emerging energy technologies, mature industries like coal and nuclear are eligible as well. Congress provided the program with funding in several areas including advanced nuclear reactors, renewable and energy efficiency, front-end nuclear fuel cycle technology, and advanced fossil fuels....
For centuries the federal government has been in the business of providing billions in subsidies to coal companies in order to ensure...
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are trying to take advantage of the drought crisis to foist a trillion-dollar farm bill on...
Yesterday, the House Agriculture Committee released its 2012 Farm Bill draft which eliminates some wasteful commodity programs but...
On June 21, the Senate passed a few long-awaited reforms to the farm subsidy maze. Unfortunately, at the same time, they also increased...
Left-Right coalition identifies practical steps Congress could take to slash deficits, save natural resources....
Like all businesses, agricultural producers face a number of risks in maintaining a profitable enterprise. Successful management of these...
The Senate Committee on Finance held a hearing last week on tax reform and its impacts on energy policy. Among the four witnesses from...
(Originally published June 8, 2012)
With debate on the 2012 Farm Bill underway on the Senate Floor, proponents of this nearly trillion...
It appears that one of the top contenders for a loan guarantee under the Department of Energy program has decided to abandon original...
With annual financial reports being released this time of year, the oil and gas industry is looking to continue its decade long trend of...
It appears the oil and gas industry is looking to continue its decade long trend of record profits. As of February 2nd, Chevron, Exxon...
Carbon capture and storage (CCS), also referred to as carbon capture and sequestration, is the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2)...
The latest iteration of the Department of Energy’s FutureGen project (find a timeline here) is a federal initiative to finance and...
The Medicine Bow plant has been repeatedly delayed over eight years. Putting the full faith and credit of the U.S. government behind this costly and risky project is fiscally reckless. ...
Taxpayers for Common Sense today released a report detailing the heavily subsidized biofuels industry's political clout.
The biofuels...
Another quarter, another unsurprising set of reports of huge profits for the oil companies. Continuing to be some of the most profitable...
Taxpayers for Common Sense has been working hard to meet the challenge of that the so-called Super Committee is facing - $.12-1.5...
Oil and gas companies have complained that they pay an effective tax rate of 41%....
Big Oil, Big Corn: An in-depth look at the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit
Corn has been subsidized since the 1930s, but it was...
A small group Senators are attempting to snatch fiscal defeat from the jaws of taxpayer victory on ethanol subsidies. Last month the...
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) released “Subsidy Gusher: Taxpayers Stuck with Massive Subsidies while Oil and...
The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) is the largest subsidy to corn ethanol, the most common biofuel in the U.S. The tax...
The FY2012 Presidential Budget Request was released this morning. TCS staff will be posting relevant documents and analysis as we digest...
The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...
We all know that lawmakers are allowed the occasional stretching of the truth, but at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources...
The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...
Also in attendance is Iowa State University economist Bruce Babcock.
Click hereClick herePolicy Briefs:
"Let the VEETC Expire:...
Total SA made $3.2 in the third quarter; Shell: $3.5; Chevron: $3.8; Exxon: $7.4; and most telling of all, BP has emerged back into the...
Newspapers Across the Country Agree: End Ethanol Subsidies!
In light of TCS’ release of the Green Scissors 2010 Report on July 22 and...
Taxpayers for Common Sense joined a number of environmental and consumer groups and a bipartisan slate of Representatives today in...
Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the plan to build “FutureGen” a massive commercial “clean coal” facility in Mattoon,...
On July 22, the Senate Committee on Appropriations passed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill. The $34.97 billion bill...
Big Oil has made Big Money over the last decade. In fact, the last five years proved to be some of the most profitable for any U.S....
New Mexico is one of the most heavily mined states in the country, producing large amounts of perlite, copper, and other hardrock...
Arizona is one of the most heavily mined states in the country, producing large amounts of copper, silver and other hardrock minerals....
It was payback time for President Obama this week when he threw down the gauntlet to tax-dodging contractors.Taxpayers pay contractors...
For decades, hardrock mining companies have benefited from generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers, all the while extracting...
Oil and gas companies that drill offshore or on public lands are required to pay for the oil and gas they remove in the form of royalties. However, because of out-dated energy policy and mismanagement of royalty collection, oil and gas companies often pay little to no royalties to the owners of the resources—U.S. taxpayers. At a time when oil companies have experienced five years of record profits, there is no need to subsidize the industry with royalty holidays. With prices at more than $80/barrel, and predicted to increase, the industry has ample incentive to produce more oil without taxpayer subsidies. ...
Another Huge Year
Exxon Mobil likes breaking records. In 2007, it posted the biggest annual profit number reported by any American...
Subsidies to the coal industry began in 1932, when the federal government allowed companies to deduct a portion of their income to help...
In 1932, the federal government began giving subsidies to the coal industry in order to help the industry recover initial capital...
Through a combination of subsidies, trade restrictions, and government mandates a handful of corporate agribusinesses and oil companies...
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructs large water projects (dams, levees, pumping sand on beaches)...
The following is a summary of the non-consumer energy tax breaks included in H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008....
Capital One Financial is a financial services company whose products and services include consumer and commercial banking and credit card...
Under intense pressure from the oil and natural gas industry, the Minerals Management Service (MMS)1 started the Royalty-in-Kind (RIK)...
Since the late 1970’s, the federal government has funneled billions of dollars into “Clean Coal” technology and programs designed to make...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report tabulating U.S. and Iraqi expenditures on rebuilding efforts (click here for...
Following the airline industry's lead, insurance executives have been lobbying Congress for terrorism insurance legislation that will...
How the Mining Industry Used Outdated Rules to Pass Environmental Cleanup Costs to Taxpayers...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is wasting billions of dollars on environmentally harmful projects, charges a new report by Taxpayers...
How Federal Taxpayers Subsidies Waste Resources and Discourage Recycling...
Our weekly reality-check for federal spending. View All
While Washington is wringing its hands about the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as...
December 17, 2012
November 29, 2012