We all know that lawmakers are allowed the occasional stretching of the truth, but at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing this morning, newly elected Sen. Manchin (D-WV) threw out a whopper. When the issue of energy subsidies to certain energy industries was brought up, Sen. Manchin (D-WV) said:
“The only energy source which is the greatest source that we have as far as what we’re dependent on right now is coal. It doesn’t get a penny of subsidies.”
If only that were true – we’d have less work to do. Not to be outdone, Sen. Franken (D-MN) later chimed in:
“Senator Manchin asked why there weren’t subsidies for coal and uh, I’m guessing that I want to answer that. And I don’t know if it was a rhetorical question, but it seems coal is doing pretty well without subsidies.”
That’s Weekend Update material.
The coal industry has been pocketing subsidies since 1932. Taxpayers for Common Sense has identified numerous tax breaks and subsidies over the years to the coal industry. Our Green Scissors report released last July identified over $19 billion in potential taxpayer savings if the following coal subsidies were eliminated.
TCS President Ryan Alexander Statement:
“We stand ready to work with Sens. Manchin and Franken to make their subsidy free coal a reality. But before we can have an honest discussion about our energy policy and cutting spending, we all need to be using the same facts. Taxpayers spend billions supporting the coal industry every year through holes in the tax code and through loan guarantees for new coal plants. We need to stop giving tax breaks to the well-entrenched coal industry and protect taxpayer dollars.”
TCS Green Scissors 2010 List of Coal Subsidies:
| Selected Coal Subsidies |
Potential Savings 2011-2015 ($) |
| Loan Guarantees for Coal Power Generation with CCS and Industrial Gasification with CCS and Advanced Coal Gasification |
8,000,000,000 |
| Clean Air Coal Program |
2,500,000,000 |
| Clean Coal Power Initiative |
1,800,000,000 |
| FutureGen |
1,073,000,000 |
| Credit for Investment in Clean Coal Facilities |
1,000,000,000 |
| Carbon Sequestration Tax Credit |
927,000,000 |
| Domestic Manufacturing Deduction for Hard Minerals |
856,000,000 |
| World Bank Capital Increase |
854,000,000 |
| Expansion of Amortization for Certain Pollution Control Facilities |
835,000,000 |
| Air Quality Enhancement Program |
500,000,000 |
| Percentage Depletion Allowance |
409,000,000 |
| Capital Gains Treatment for Royalties from Coal |
237,000,000 |
| Expensing of Exploration and Development |
202,000,000 |
| Certain Income and Gains Relating to Industrial Source Carbon Dioxide Treated as Qualifying Income for Publicly Traded Partnerships |
11,000,000 |
| Electron Scrubbing Demonstration Project |
5,000,000 |
| Research and Development for Coal Mining Technologies |
* |
| Build America Bonds (BAB) |
9,891,000,000 |
| Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) |
400,000,000 |
| TOTAL (excluding ARPA-E or BAB) |
19,209,000,000 |
For more information, please contact Autumn Hanna at (202) 546-8500 x112 or autumn [at] taxpayer.net.
