Tag Archives: Big Oil

Where Our Tax Money Has Gone

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At one point there was a meme going around suggesting that Congressmen wear logos on their suits like the ones race drivers wear so that we would know who sponsors them. In looking at some of the expenditures by Congress in recent years, I think that would be a really good idea. Particularly in the area of renewable energy. How much of our tax money used to subsidize green energy wound up in China?

On Monday (updated Tuesday) Just the News posted an article about the distribution of the energy subsidies provided by our federal government.

The article reports:

A new report from the National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA) finds that 90% of subsidies for the energy sector in 2025 went to renewable energy. The analysis also shows that oil, gas and coal industries’ subsidies come mainly in the form of tax expenditures as opposed to direct subsidies.

Using data from the Department of the Treasury, Paul Tice, senior fellow with the NCEA, calculates that in fiscal year 2025, explicit government subsidies in the form of tax expenditures for the entire energy sector totaled $64.1 billion. This was more than all other domestic industries. The NCEA was created by The Texas Public Policy Foundation as a national energy think tank.

The total fossil fuel-related tax expenditures came to $2.6 billion in revenue losses for the federal government in fiscal year 2025. 

By comparison, the total amount of federal tax money subsidizing renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy-efficient equipment in fiscal year 2025 was $57.9 billion, which exceeds the total for fossil fuels over the entire fiscal year 1994-2025 period, according to the report. 

The article notes that “Big Oil” is not gobbling up all of the energy subsidies:

The analysis disputes claims from other sources that “Big Oil” is gobbling up trillions of dollars in subsidies every year. The International Monetary Fund pegs the global figure at $7 trillion. A report in September from the climate advocacy nonprofit Oil Change International estimated that oil, gas and coal in the U.S. receive approximately $34.8 billion per year. 

The article concludes:

Tice concluded that repealing all subsidies for fossil fuels would have no meaningful impact on the profitability of the industry or the demand for its products. The main driver of energy-sector subsidies are tax credits for renewable energy. 

“Income tax expenditures for renewable energy producers and clean energy users will continue to dwarf those for the traditional energy sector for the foreseeable future,” Tice wrote. 

While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed in July will phase them out, it will be another decade before that happens. And there’s no certainty they will. The tax credits were originally established in 1992 as a means to boost a fledgling industry. They’ve been renewed 11 times since. 

This is another place where Congress needs to act to save the taxpayers’ money.

Continuing The War On American Energy Independence

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported that the Biden has more attacks on the fossil fuel industry in the works.

The article reports:

President Biden is calling on Congress to make companies pay fees on wells from their leases that they haven’t used in years and on acres of public lands that they are hoarding without producing,” the White House said in a fact sheet on Thursday.

“Companies that are producing from their leased acres and existing wells will not face higher fees,” the statement continued. “But companies that continue to sit on non-producing acres will have to choose whether to start producing or pay a fee for each idled well and unused acre.”

As part of the announcement Thursday, Biden will also order the Department of Energy to release a million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the next six months.

The White House has repeatedly blamed Big Oil for not doing enough to combat high gasoline prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has disrupted global energy supplies. Biden and Democratic lawmakers suggested this month that oil companies have taken advantage of the crisis to pad their profits.

I have no way of knowing if the President actually believes the garbage he is spouting. The problem with gasoline prices sits in the White House–not in the executive boards of oil companies.

The article concludes:

Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma, meanwhile, noted the Interior Department is currently holding up permits on 3,800 leases while it conducts additional “climate change analysis,” about 4,600 permits are still awaiting approval and that the her group is defending thousands more in court.

“Western Energy Alliance has been in court for years defending 5,900 leases of 7.3 million acres and companies can’t develop on most of them when they’re caught up in legal challenges,” Sgamma told the DCNF in a statement. “But the president now wants to penalize us for these delays?”

“The White House conveniently forgets the government’s role in delaying pipelines and permits and introducing new financial and regulatory risks to American development,” she continued.

The Biden administration has actively pursued an anti-fossil fuel agenda, nixing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ditching oil drilling in Alaska, not appealing a court ruling that prohibited a massive offshore drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico, attempting to ban new drilling leases on federal lands and making it harder for utilities to gain approval for natural gas projects.

The actions of the Biden administration in the area of energy policy show a total lack of concern for the well being of the American people. A continuation of these policies will eventually wipe out the middle class in America. This may in fact be the goal of the Biden administration.