Scott Pruitt Declares War on Wind and Solar Energy While Fossil Fuels Get Billions in Subsidies
Scott Pruitt
Scott Pruitt  Declares War on Wind and Solar Energy  While Fossil Fuels Get Billions in Subsidies
 Scott Pruitt  speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor  Maryland  on February 25  2017.
Photo Credit:  Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt  recently proposed eliminating federal tax credits for wind and solar power  arguing that  they  should âstand on  their  own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sourcesâ as opposed to âbeing propped up by tax incentives and other types of credits....â
Stand on  their  own?
 Pruitt  surely must be aware that fossil fuels have been feasting at the government trough for at least 100 years. Renewables  by comparison  have received support only since the mid-1990s and  until recently  have had to subsist on scraps.
Perhaps a review of the facts can set  Administrator Pruitt  straight. Thereâs a strong case to be made that Congress should terminate subsidies for fossil fuels and extend them for renewables  not the other way around.
A new study by Oil Change International brings us up-to-date. Published earlier this month  it found that federal subsidies in 2015 and 2016 averaged $10.9 billion a year for the oil and gas industry and $3.8 billion for the coal industry. By contrast  the wind industryâs so-called production tax credit  renewed by Congress in December 2015  amounted to $3.3 billion last year  according to a Congress Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate. Unlike the fossil fuel industryâs permanent subsidies  Congress has allowed the wind tax credit to expire six times in the last 20 years  and  it  is now set to decline incrementally until ending in 2020. Similarly  Congress fixed the solar industryâs investment tax credit at 30 percent of a projectâs cost through 2019  but reduced  it  to 10 percent for commercial projects and zeroed  it  out for residences by the end of 2021. The JCT estimates that the solar credit amounted to a $2.4-billion tax break last year. Totaling it up  fossil fuels â at $14.7 billion â still received two-and-a-half times more in federal support than solar and wind in 2016.
[TGT] Declares War on Wind and Solar Energy  While Fossil Fuels Get Billions in Subsidies
  [TGT] speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor  Maryland  on February 25  2017.
Photo Credit:   [TGT] 
recently proposed eliminating federal tax credits for wind and solar power  arguing that   [TGT]   should âstand on   [TGT]   own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sourcesâ as opposed to âbeing propped up by tax incentives and other types of credits....â
Stand on  their  own?
  [TGT] surely must be aware that fossil fuels have been feasting at the government trough for at least 100 years. Renewables  by comparison  have received support only since the mid-1990s and  until recently  have had to subsist on scraps.
Perhaps a review of the facts can set   [TGT] straight. Thereâs a strong case to be made that Congress should terminate subsidies for fossil fuels and extend them for renewables  not the other way around.
A new study by Oil Change International brings us up-to-date. Published earlier this month  it found that federal subsidies in 2015 and 2016 averaged $10.9 billion a year for the oil and gas industry and $3.8 billion for the coal industry. By contrast  the wind industryâs so-called production tax credit  renewed by Congress in December 2015  amounted to $3.3 billion last year  according to a Congress Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate. Unlike the fossil fuel industryâs permanent subsidies  Congress has allowed the wind tax credit to expire six times in the last 20 years  and  it  is now set to decline incrementally until ending in 2020. Similarly  Congress fixed the solar industryâs investment tax credit at 30 percent of a projectâs cost through 2019  but reduced  it  to 10 percent for commercial projects and zeroed   [TGT]   out for residences by the end of 2021. The JCT estimates that the solar credit amounted to a $2.4-billion tax break last year. Totaling  [TGT]  up  fossil fuels â at $14.7 billion â still received two-and-a-half times more in federal support than solar and wind in 2016.