fb tracking

Stop Subsidizing Pollution

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/image/oilmoney2.jpgWe have a powerful new tool to take on the fossil fuel industry and level the energy playing field.

Last week, new legislation was introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Keith Ellison that would repeal $113 billion of tax-breaks, handouts and subsidies for the fossil fuel industry over the next 10 years.

View the list of subsidies the End Welfare Pollution Act, if passed, would repeal.

Federal subsidies and tax credits can be beneficial for short-term support of emerging technologies that help society as a whole.

Unfortunately, the mature fossil fuel industry is subsidized at nearly six times the rate of renewable energy. And unlike renewable energy incentives, which periodically expire and require Congress to approve extending, the fossil fuel industry has dozens of subsidies permanently engrained in the tax code from decades of successful lobbying.

With the burning of fossil fuels increasingly destabilizing our climate, why do we keep subsidizing the problem?

Eliminating fossil fuel handouts will go a long way toward advancing solutions like new innovations in the clean energy sector.

We can’t afford to keep throwing gobs of money at the fossil fuel industry.  Support the effort to end welfare to polluting industries.