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Blumenauer Introduces Legislation to End Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies

March 9, 2023

"Today I introduced the End Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies Act of 2023. This legislation eliminates nearly a dozen of the most egregious tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas industry.President Biden proposed a similar initiative in his Fiscal Year 2024 budget.

The climate is changing. This fact is indisputable, as is the fact that humans are primary cause of the changing climate. The United States emitted nearly 6 billion tons of greenhouse gases in 2020 and the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions comes from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Despite consistent profitability, fossil fuel companies receive billions of dollars in federal tax breaks and subsidies, which underwrite the costs of continued oil and gas production. These forgone revenues undermine the United States’ ability combat the climate crisis and invest in critical initiatives like education, housing, infrastructure, and healthcare.

Recent analysis released by the Stockholm Environment Institute found that just two oil and gas tax subsidies – the expensing of intangible drilling costs and the percentage depletion allowance – increased the value of new oil and gas projects by more than $20 billion in some years. These two subsidies alone helped spur and sustain the shale development boom in the United States. Follow-up analysis examining the impacts of continuing these subsidies found that the subsidies increase average rate of return by 55% to 68% and more than 96% of the subsidy value goes to excess profits.

Oil and gas tax subsidies are unnecessary and a wasteful use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. I look forward to working with my colleagues to rid them from the tax code once and for all." 

Linked here is a one-page fact sheet. Linked here is the bill text.