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.
