WASHINGTON - Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.) today asked the Government Accountability Office to expand their previously-requested study into energy subsidies to include all forms of federal support for various energy technologies since the first creation of tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry in 1916. Reps. Markey and Holt asked today for this expansion of GAO’s work due to narrow requests sent by Republican Reps. Fred Upton, Ed Whitfield, Tim Murphy and Mike Pompeo to the agency that was written to ignore certain taxpayer support to the oil and gas and nuclear industries.
“Understanding the totality of these subsidies is imperative in evaluating federal support for energy industries like the oil and gas sector," writes Rep. Markey, the Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee and Rep. Holt, the Ranking Member on the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, to the GAO. “Such a report will enable Congress and the American people to obtain a clearer understanding of the full range of federal subsidies and benefits provided to established and incumbent energy industries such as oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy, as well as incentives provided to newer energy providers such as wind, solar, and other renewables."
The letter from Reps. Markey and Holt to the GAO can be found HERE.
In the letter to the GAO, the congressmen explain that previous Republican GAO subsidy studies had, for example, included a definition of “subsidy" that is “narrowly tailored and therefore may not provide a full or complete assessment of the support for various forms of energy or energy technologies. For instance, the oil and gas industry enjoys tremendous tax benefits, which are permanent pieces of the tax code that may not be included under such a definition."
Additionally, Reps. Markey and Holt note that the request from the GOP lawmakers, “also ignores the massive subsidies provided to one nuclear company that is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), and the impact those subsidies have on the rest of the uranium enrichment sector and the uranium mining industry. In just the past year, the Department of Energy has provided this company with about $130 million in waivers of its liability for cleaning up its nuclear wastes and successfully advocated for the authority to provide it with an additional $100 million in direct appropriations in the first part of the next fiscal year."
Contact: Eben Burnham-Snyder, Rep. Ed Markey, 202-225-6065
