Energy subsidies

Energy subsidies are widely attacked from many different viewpoints about public policy. Thus, among economists, both severe critics of the oil companies, such as Blair, and those such as Adelman and McAvoy who stress defective government policy criticize the subsidies. Environmentalists and other supporters of active government often feel that too many programs aid the unworthy. 

It is widely agreed among economists that market failures in energy exist. However, the record m practice has produced widespread criticism ofimplemen-taion of energy subsidies. 

Unfortunately, the most recent estimates of energy subsidies in the United States date from the early 1990s and earlier, and such subsidies change constantly as the tax laws are modified and governmental priorities change. Tt is clear that total subsidies to the energy industries are in the billions to a few tens of billions of dollars each year, but the total is not known with precision. 

Heede, H. R. (198.S). A Preliminary Assessment of Federal Energy Subsidies in FYl984. Washington, DC Tesdmony submitted to the Subcommittee on Energy and Agricultural Taxation, Committee on Finance, United States Senate, June 21. 

Koplow, D. N. (1993). Federal Energy Subsidies Energy, Environmental, and Fiscal Impacts. Washington, DC The Alliance to Save Energy. 

Kosmo, M. (1987). Money to Buni The High Costs of Energy Subsidies. World Resources Institute. 

Maintenance cost reduced by energy subsidies (by man) production increased Maintenance cost high, but rarely subsidized... 

Steever, E.Z., Warren, R.S., and Niering, W.A. (1976) Tidal energy subsidy and standing crop production of Spartina altemiflora. Estuar. Coastal Shelf Sci. 4, 473-490. 

Table I. APPROXIMATE ENERGY USE IN WOOD PRODUCTION OPERATIONS A. Energy Subsidy Due to Equipment Manufacture...

Energy subsidies are frequendy examined independently from other subsidies such as for food, partly because of the scale of energy subsidies and partly because of differences in the range of instruments used for the subsidies (Alderman 2002b). 

This enormous accomplishment has been made possible only by a combination of many advances, including rapidly rising energy subsidies in farming, the introduction of new crop varieties, and the availability of better pest and weed controls. But neither the mechanization of farming nor better cultivars or new pesticides would have produced today s harvests without a massive increase in the supply of fixed... 

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