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by ToucanLoucan 706 days ago
And that's not even going into the fact that we would already be pushing for more fuel efficiency in vehicles especially if gas wasn't so incredibly subsidized here in the United States. We pay absurdly low prices compared to basically everywhere else and you cannot convince me that is not a significant factor in why we still have so many massive trucks, SUV's, and V8 sports cars.

And don't get me wrong, I love my sports car and it's big thundering V8. But I also know the negative effects it has and I'm completely fine paying a higher price at the pump to offset that.
1 comments
s1artibartfast 706 days ago
I hear this often, but my understanding is that gas is has very high sin taxes, there are no subsidies, and some tax breaks, but are the type that most businesses qualify for.

Every time I look it up, the results are so full of rhetoric and conflating I can't find an answer.

Most top line numbers count on priced externalities as a implicit subsidy. That's fine and well for some analyzes, but very different than Direct Cash subsidies or tax breaks

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pohl 706 days ago
> there are no subsidies

I thought the oil and gas industry famously got about $4B in subsidies per year, and about $20B to fossil fuel industries in general. Has that changed recently?

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s1artibartfast 706 days ago
Thats what Im asking about.

Is that a 20B check the federal government paid them? Is that 20B of tax deductions from carry forward losses that every company in the US gets? Is that 20B of carbon taxes that some analyst thinks would be fair, but there is no law requiring them to pay?

The IMF says things like this[1]:

>This includes $3 billion in explicit subsidies and $754 billion in implicit subsidies, which are costs like negative health impacts and environmental degradation that are borne by society at large rather than producers (i.e., negative externalities).

This link [2] goes a little more into what the "direct subsidies" are:

Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction - Not sure why this is a subsidy. Most business costs are tax deductible for other industries.

Clean Coal Investment and Nonconventional Fuels Tax Credits - These are incentives to decarbonize. I agree that they are subsidies in the traditional sense, but not subsidies to increase carbon production. Something like a 30% tax credit for money spent on upgrades that sequester >75% of the carbon emissions seems like a good thing.

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-red...

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs...

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