Thread: Unequal Exchange: How Taxpayers Shoulder the Burden of Fossil Fuel Development on Fed

Unequal Exchange: How Taxpayers Shoulder the Burden of Fossil Fuel Development on Federal Lands

Janet Redman, May 24, 2017
Oil Change International
With 350.org, WildEarth Guardians, Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Water Action, Food & Water Watch, and Public Citizen
May 2017
Download PDF Briefing
Key findings of this report include:

• Fossil fuel production on federal lands – onshore and offshore territories – was subsidized to the tune of at least $7 billion in 2014. This number is likely a low estimate, as it does not account for the many subsidies that we identified, but did not include, for which reliable cost estimates were not available. It also does not include subsidies from the federal government and in the tax code not explicitly directed to fossil fuel production on federal lands.

• The ability of oil, gas, and coal producers to shift potential future liability onto taxpayers is also a major subsidy, but because it is difficult to calculate precisely, it is not included in the subsidy totals presented here. U.S. taxpayers’ contingent liability for decommissioning and cleanup of oil and gas projects in the Gulf of Mexico alone is estimated to be $35.3 billion by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

• Incorporating climate damage caused by fossil fuels produced on federal lands makes the economic argument for ending new leases on federal lands and waters even stronger. In the case of coal from the Powder River Basin, an area of active federal coal leases, every short ton of coal produced has a net cost to American taxpayers of $49 dollars. That means that Powder River Basin coal production alone – only a small sliver of fossil fuel production on federal lands nationwide – had a net cost to taxpayers of $17.8 billion in 2015, dwarfing the supposed economic benefits of allowing new fossil fuel leases on federal lands and waters.

• Removing these subsidies would save taxpayers money while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions from oil, gas, and coal production. The $7 billion in subsidies to fossil fuel companies could nearly double current support levels for mandatory computer science education programs for all public school students. It could pay for fixing the lead-contaminated water system in Flint, MI, and still cover the cost necessary for researchers to accelerate the development of new cancer detection and treatments – more than six times over.

http://priceofoil.org/2017/05/24/une...federal-lands/

photo of wild horses cruelly rounded up even though a designated land for them in this basin - they are held in pens and eventually sold for inhumane slaughter in mexico
This is what opening up our federal lands to for profit industries does! To mistreat, abscond land from our great American symbol of the West, the wild horse, is UN-AMERICAN and dastardly.

We definitely need to charge more for use of federal lands by everyone. Of course the cost will be forwarded onto consumers, but that's how it should be, oil companies and ranchers alike.

Thousands of old mines pollute Colorado waters, with no help in sight

Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells

Underground fires, toxins in unfunded cleanup of old coal mines

Millions of Leaking Natural Gas and Oil Wells Set to Foul Our Future

Truth be known - industry needs more regulations. Why should taxpayers pay for cleanups?

We need to keep our federal lands as they are - no further invasion by man for over the top recreational use needing roads, rvs etc nor polluting industries nor to house an abundance of refugees, illegals, immigrants - is nothing sacred save the profits of dirty industries and their share holders? Does man have to leave his ugly footprint in every preserved nature area? It is a question of balance and opening up our parks/monuments more than they are now is unbalanced and greedy.


"in Wilderness is the Preservation of the World" - Thoreau

Trump directs EPA to begin dismantling clean water rule

President Trump's executive order directs the Environmental Protection Agency to set about dismantling the Waters of the United States rule which gave the EPA broad authority over nearly two-thirds of the waterways in the nation. Feb. 28, 2017 (The White House)

Evan Halper Contact Reporter

President Trump stepped up his attack on federal environmental protections Tuesday, issuing an order directing his administration to begin the long process of rolling back sweeping clean water rules that were enacted by his predecessor.

The order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to set about dismantling the Waters of the United States rule takes aim at one of President Obama’s signature environmental legacies, a far-reaching anti-pollution effort that expanded the authority of regulators over the nation’s waterways and wetlands.

The contentious rule had been fought for years by farmers, ranchers, real estate developers and others, who complained it invited heavy-handed bureaucrats to burden their businesses with onerous restrictions and fines for minor violations.

Obama’s EPA argued that such claims were exaggerated and misrepresented the realities of the enforcement process of a rule that promised to create substantially cleaner waterways, and with them healthier habitats for threatened species of wildlife.

The directive to undo the clean water initiative is expected to be closely followed by another aimed at unraveling the Obama administration’s ambitious plan to fight climate change by curbing power plant emissions.

“It is such a horrible, horrible rule,” Trump said as he signed the directive Tuesday aimed at the water rules. “It has such a nice name, but everything about it is bad.” He declared the rule, championed by environmental groups to give the EPA broad authority over nearly two-thirds of the waterways in the nation, “one of the worst examples of federal regulation” and “a massive power grab.”



While the executive orders are a clear sign of the new administration’s distaste for some of the highest profile federal environmental rules, they also reflect the challenge it faces in erasing them. Both the climate and the clean water rules were enacted only after a long and tedious process of public hearings, scientific analysis and bureaucratic review. That entire process must be revisited before they can be weakened. It could take years.

And environmental groups will be mobilized to fight every step of the way. “These wetland protections help ensure that over 100 million Americans have access to clean and safe drinking water,” California billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer said in a statement. “Access to safe drinking water is a human right, and Trump's order is a direct violation of this right.”

The executive orders are compounded by the administration’s release of a budget blueprint that includes deep cuts at the EPA. Even if the process of changing the environmental rules is slow, the Trump administration will aim to hasten their demise by hollowing out the agencies charged with enforcing them.

At the same time, it is working with Congress to immediately kill some environmental protections under an obscure authority that applies to regulations enacted within the final months of the previous administration. A rule intended to limit water pollution from coal mining has already been killed by Congress, which is now weighing whether to jettison rules that force gas drilling operations on federal land to capture more of the toxic methane they emit.

Trump vowed Tuesday that he would continue to undermine the Obama-era environmental protections wherever he sees the opportunity, arguing they have cost jobs. “So many jobs we have delayed for so many years,” Trump said. “It is unfair to everybody.”

Many industries take issue with that interpretation. Tuesday’s order, for example, was met with a swift rebuke from sport fishing and hunting groups. They said the clean water rule has been a boon to the economy, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in their industry.

“Sports men and women will do everything within their power to compel the administration to change course and to use the Clean Water Act to improve, not worsen, the nation’s waterways,” a statement from a half-dozen of the organizations said.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-n...228-story.html