Obama's climate plan 'absolutely crazy'

Here are some posts from the past (on WUWT) wrt subsidies:
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HaroldW says:
June 22, 2010 at 10:33 am
there are some subsidies, but they are actually really small.
1: royalties paid to foreign countries and states are credited for tax purposes…. as it should be.
if you paid for raw material, it has be considered as expense.
2: research credit that is available to ALL INDUSTRIES is available to oil&gas. there is nothing special here.
3: govt pays poor people for heat. that is welfare. not a subsidy to oil&gas. That money can be used for electric heat, even if it is hydro electric or other “renewable” source.
4: investment credits available to everyone is available to oil&gas. where is the subsidy there?
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Jeremy says:
September 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing to end what he says are $4 billion a year in tax subsidies to the biggest oil companies.”
Firstly, all Oil Companies pay taxes on earnings just like any corporation. According to data found in the Standard & Poor’s Compustat North American Database, the industry’s 2009 net income tax expenses — essentially their effective marginal income tax rate — averaged 41 percent, compared to 26 percent for the S&P Industrial companies. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) concludes that, as an additional part of their tax obligation, the major energy-producing companies paid or incurred over $280 billion of income tax expenses between 2006 and 2008.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/25/the-truth-about-americas-oil-gas-companies-part-i/ .
Secondly, according to the ONRR, annual revenues from federal onshore and offshore (OCS) mineral leases are one of the federal government’s largest sources of non-tax revenue. In 2010, Royalty Revenue amounted to around $8 Billion
http://www.onrr.gov/
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Luke says:
September 26, 2011 at 10:44 am
Most of those $4.0 billion in “subsidies” are not specific to the oil & gas industry. They break down as follows:
$1.7 billion in Domestic Manufacturing Credits: Applies to all production companies equally. A reward for creating/leaving the jobs in the US economy. You can argue whether or not they can move this production from the US, since the oil is located here, but it is clear that they can move the exploration equipment to anywhere in the world and ship the oil in. There is no requirement that oil used domestically must be produced in the US. So given that, what other industries should we strip this credit from?
$1.0 billion in % depletion allowance: Applies specifically to the oil and gas industry as a mechanism for capital recovery. It takes the place of depreciating the assets in the ground. Of course we don’t like to talk about the dark side of this one, which is when oil prices are lower for a sustained period of time, it acts like an anti-subsidy, so this one can cut both ways and at time has. Easy solution is to use capital base instead of income. Over the long haul though, I doubt this equals $1.0 billion a year. Just $1.0 billion a year in the current price environment.
$0.9 billion in foreign tax credit: This one again, applies equally to all. The dodgy part with this is classification of royalty payments as income taxes. Some foreign governments have converted royalty payments to income taxes, allowing for greater deductibility under US tax law. This, however, is not unique to the oil industry. So again, who else would you like to strip this one from?
$0.8 billion in intangible drilling costs: This one is specific to the oil and gas industry. This however is not a subsidy. Period. Exclamation Point! At best, this is a shifting of tax payments to later years. It allows the oil company to deduct their exploration expenses immediately. When this rule was enacted, it actually made sense because 90% of those expenses were written off in the first year anyway because of the abysmal hit rate for new wells, as opposed to the alternative which is adding it to the depreciation base for a new well. Now that the hit rate is much better, maybe it’s time to rethink the break, but it will not provide an $0.8 billion dollar annual windfall. It might provided a short term difference, but after 4-5 years under the new rules, you’d be pretty much back to the same annual number for “tax breaks” resulting from intangible drilling costs.
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chris y says:
September 26, 2011 at 9:31 am
“U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing to end what he says are $4 billion a year in tax subsidies to the biggest oil companies.”
That $4B amounts to 1.6 cents per gallon of gasoline.
Did Schumer also propose an end to Federal, state and local gasoline taxes to ‘even the playing field’?
Did Schumer also propose an equivalent tax on solar and wind energy to ‘even the playing field?’
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Catcracking says:
December 3, 2011 at 7:20 am
One favorites of Pelosi is the reduction in royalities that was set up during the Clinton Administration to give companies an incentive to drill in deep water offshore in the Gulf when oil prices were low. Royalities are still paid but circa 20 % less. It was a good business deal for both sides at the time and improved for the drillers as oil prices rose. So now many of the tax and spend crowd want to change the contract and threaten those who refuse to comply with blackballing them from biding on new leases. How else can they make renewable energy sources look competitive?
Another item frequently referenced is the accelerated write off of capital expenses to encourage investment and boost the economy that is offered to every other business.
A third item is the foreign tax credits offered to all companies that bring foreign earnings back to the US.
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Janice says:
December 3, 2011 at 7:36 am
There is a hidden subsidy for both solar and wind power, one that could easily be avoided, but never will be because it is not politically expedient. The subsidy is the amount of money it takes to remove solar and wind farms once the parent company abandons them. It usually winds up being public money that is used, since the parent companies usually go bankrupt and are dissolved. It could easily be avoided if the parent companies were forced to post a bond equal to the amount it would take to remove the equipment, and restore the area. And that is a subsidy which coal and oil do not enjoy, because they are forced to remediate their mining and drilling sites.
Roy UK says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:33 am
@Alexandre 7.47am
Statement before the Senate Finance Committee
Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure March 27, 2012
FY2010 Electricity Production Subsidies and Support per megawatt-hour
(year 2010 dollars)
Natural Gas, Petroleum Liquids 0.63
Coal (pulverized) 0.64
Hydroelectric 0.84
Biomass 2.00
Nuclear 3.10
Geothermal 12.50
Wind 52.48
Solar 968.00
So subsidies per MWh to Wind and Solar are 100 – 1500 times the cost of subsidies to the Big oil. You didn’t really think your question through did you?
Steve Keohane says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:38 am
Alexandre says:December 5, 2012 at 7:47 am
I’d like to know where the Heartland Institute stands in the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. You know, being non-Big Oil and all…

According to the link you provided $58B was paid globally in so called oil subsidies. In 2004, according to energy.gov, we in the USA used 140 billion gallons of gasoline, for which $70B in taxes at the pump was collected. And don’t for get the corporate tax on the wholesale sales, and the taxes paid by the oil employees to make the gasoline, etc. So where is the subsidy? Your so-called oil subsidies are smoke and mirrors, nothing more.
John M says:
December 5, 2012 at 9:11 am
Steve Keohane says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:38 am
Regarding the whining about fossil fuel “subsidies”, it would be interesting to see Alexendre’s opinion on these “subsidies” listed in his source:
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Petroleum) : 336 Million
Fuel-Tax Exemptions for Farmers: 1 Billion (that’s a B)
Strategic Petroleum Reserves: 1 Billion (Hell, the way that one’s been used, it should be charged back to the DNC as a campaign contribution)
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Nat Gas): 1.7 Billion (that’s a B too)
Credit for Investment in Clean-Coal Facilities: 370 Million
Amortisation of Certain Pollution-Control Facilities: 200 Million
Jeez, maybe they ought to count food stamps as a fossil fuel subsidy too, since they are used to buy food produced by those farmers who get those huge Fossil Fuel tax exemptions, or allow poor people to spend more to fill their tanks.

Here are recent WUWT comments on the Tesla from the thread below:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/12/lomborg-californians-are-paying-ridiculous-subsidies-for-electric-cars/
Guest post by Bjørn Lomborg
I’ve said electric cars get subsidized too much. Turns out I was wrong.
In California, they are subsidized ridiculously too much.
Tesla gets $45,000 for each car it sells in state and federal subsidies. The Tesla S starts at $69,000, so about 40% of its total cost is subsidies (Tesla isn’t making any big profits).
This is because the California Air Resources Board has mandated that zero emission vehicles should comprise 15% of new-car sales by 2025 — up from less than 1% now. This forces other car companies that can’t comply to pay for credits from Tesla.
“At the end of the day, other carmakers are subsidizing Tesla,” says one analyst.
Remember, the Tesla avoids perhaps 10 tons of CO2 (more likely, with its large battery pack it avoids nothing or even *increases* total CO2 emissions). That means Americans pay at least $5,000 per ton of CO2 avoided – about a thousand times more than the price in the European Trading System.
It also avoids local air pollution (which is presumably the Air Resources Board’s objective), but over the entire lifetime of the car, this is worth around $500.
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/posts/10151689361298968
Air pollution costs: For Europe: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/sustainable/doc/2008_costs_handbook.pdf, p57, air pollution for new gasoline cars is about €0.001/km or $150 for 150,000 km;
For France: http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/DiscussionPapers/DP201203.pdffor France, p26, shows €634
Danish numbers: DKK 1500 (or about $300) for 150,000km, p147
http://www.dors.dk/graphics/Synkron-Library/Publikationer/Rapporter/Miljo_2013/Trykt/M13.pdf
We subsidize electric cars too much: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324128504578346913994914472.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/05/business/la-fi-electric-cars-20130506
John Moore says:
May 12, 2013 at 11:53 am
Interesting to see what the second hand value of these things will be after two or three years… and remember the range on a charge with heater, headlights, wipers and heated rear window on in the winter isn’t going to be very far. I wonder what the breakdown insurance will be.
Bruce Cobb says:
May 12, 2013 at 1:35 pm
Cost of Tesla electric vehicle – $114k.
Cost to consumer after rebate – $69k.
Cost to others including consumers and taxpayers – $45k.
Value to environment – negligible.
Value of helping rich people buy cool stuff, and feel smug about it – priceless.
Sal Minella says:
May 12, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Tesla just announced their first profitable quarter this past week. Without the big subsidies it would have had another big loser. Doesn’t matter, however, stock went up > 25%. Just like everything else these days, smoke and mirrors wins out over reality even though everyone knows that it’s smoke and mirrors (see wind and solar energy).
William Astley says:
May 12, 2013 at 2:23 pm
Electric cars are zero emission if the electric power that is used to power the electric car is zero emission which is not the case.
Lithium-ion batteries lose roughly 10% of their power to internal currents when new. Depending on ambient temperature (maximum 40C. Internal losses increase to 40% if the ambient temperature reaches 40C.) that increases to around 30% when the batteries are 5 years old.
If the generation losses, transmission losses, and battery losses are included and the generation source is hydrocarbon, the electric car gets equivalently 38 miles/gallon.
Curiously if the objective has to reduce carbon dioxide emissions it would be better (1/3 the cost, if people care about costs) to purchase a small diesel powered car which can get 45 miles per gallon and not have the battery problems.
Roughly 60% of European cars are diesel.
It don’t make sense that common sense don’t make sense no more.