The refineries that are linked to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as committed shippers will receive between $1 billion and $1.8 billion in tax breaks. They are paid specifically for investing in equipment to process the heavy sour oil the pipeline promises to deliver.

The largest of these refineries, Motiva, is half owned by Saudi Refining Inc., and will receive between $680 million and $1.1 billion in U.S. taxpayer support.

Keystone XL, like all oil industry projects, is enabled by substantial taxpayer subsidies. Three of the refineries that are planning to process the pipeline’s oil have invested in special equipment to handle the extra heavy tar sands oil. According to our conservative estimates, the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing these investments to the tune of $1.0-1.8 billion. Here’s how it works.

Tar sands oil is not like most other crude oil. It is a semi-solid bituminous sludge that has to be diluted with much lighter oil in order to be transported by pipeline. Once it arrives at a refinery, the diluent is removed and the bitumen is refined into petroleum products using special equipment. The equipment required includes cokers and hydrocrackers.

In anticipation of the Keystone XL pipeline, three refineries in Port Arthur, Texas have added this equipment in order to be able to profitably process the bitumen. Their goal is to maximize their production of high value fuels such as gasoline and diesel rather than be left with less valuable fuels such as residual oil (for shipping and industrial burners) and Petroleum Coke, a coal like substance that is burned in aluminum smelters and the like. Heavy oil yields high proportions of these less valuable fuels if you do not have the specific equipment to increase the higher value yield.

Special tax rules apply to these investments that are unique to the refining industry. Title 179C of the tax code allows the refining companies to deduct the value of these investments from their tax returns at a highly accelerated rate. Rather than spread the expense over the life time of the equipment, say 20-30 years, the refiners are allowed to expense (i.e., deduct from their taxable income) 50% in the first year and expense the rest through the next 9 years. This is tantamount to a massive interest free loan from the taxpayer to big oil refiners, making it cheaper for them to process a particularly dirty form of foreign oil. In the case of the three Port Arthur refineries preparing to process Keystone XL crude, we calculate this to cost the taxpayer between $1.0 billion and $1.8 billion.

In the case of the Valero Port Arthur refinery’s hydrocracker project, the company has described the project to investors as one that will enable the refinery to process Canadian heavy oil into diesel and jet fuel for the export market. See below.

Does that look like the ‘national interest’ to you?

Of the three refineries involved, two of them, Valero Port Arthur and Total Port Arthur made these investments explicitly to process Canadian heavy oil that would be delivered by Keystone XL. Both companies are committed shippers on the pipeline meaning they have signed contracts committing them to a specific proportion of the pipeline’s capacity.

The other refinery, Motiva Port Arthur, jointly owned by Shell and Saudi Aramco, is expected to take some Keystone XL oil but it is also expected to use the new equipment to process large quantities of heavy sour oil imported from Saudi Arabia.

When the work finishes later this year, this refinery will become the largest in the United States.  It will have the capacity to process up to 325,000 barrels per day of heavy sour oil. The United States is not a significant producer of heavy sour oil. Countries that are expected to increase their production of this difficult-to-process crude include Canada (tar sands), Venezuela, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait among others. So the subsidy received by this refinery is directly to enable the processing of a particularly dirty form of oil that is not produced in America.

Hmm, what was it pipeline proponents, including the owners of these refineries, were saying about reducing dependence on oil from hostile and unstable countries?

The special tax treatment of refinery investments that allows the 50% accelerated depreciation was introduced in the 2005 Energy Policy Act and was targeted at refinery investments that expand the capacity of the refinery. However, in August 2011, the act was amended specifically to extend the tax break to refinery investments that enable the refinery to process tar sands oil or enable an increase in capacity to refine tar sands oil if the new equipment is commissioned between 2008 and 2014. All of these projects qualify.

We have calculated the value to these three companies of this accelerated depreciation for the investments listed in the table below. These investments were made specifically to process heavy sour oil in refineries closest to the terminus of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and owned by companies who are known committed shippers on the pipeline.

Finally, all the refineries that will receive Keystone XL tar sands crude operate are in a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ), which gives tax benefits to companies that use imported components to manufacture items within the United States (FTZ Act – 19 USC 81a-81u). Usually, refineries importing oil tax-free will still pay taxes when selling the refined products into the U.S. market. By both importing into and exporting from foreign trade zones the companies will avoid paying tax on the product sales.  In other words, it’s a great deal for the oil industry, and a raw deal for the taxpayer.

Nobody in the oil industry can claim that Keystone XL, or any other oil and gas project, is free of taxpayer support. The subsidies we have revealed here are just a few examples among many forms of fiscal support to Keystone XL and the tar sands industry. Further, the full costs of our oil addiction in terms of health, environment and security are never included in an official analysis of these projects.

The public has the right to both know how our money supports Big Oil and see a thorough evaluation of any proposal the oil industry has for expanding its infrastructure. Such an examination would throw light on the true costs of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when we need to reduce our dependence on oil, rather than simply trumpeting the short term benefits to companies involved. Now that the project has been stopped, the true cost of Keystone XL is only just coming to light.

For full details of our analysis see here.

Table: Three refinery refit projects intended for processing Keystone XL oil

Our latest report, Getting to Market: Emerging Investor Risks in the Tar Sands highlights the latest challenge facing the tar sands industry and warns investors to look more critically at industry’s ambitious claims.

Download the full report

Tar sands extraction projects are moving forward with increasing pace. The industry ambition is to grow production from today’s level an extraordinary 140 percent by 2025.

Environmental impacts are a concern, particularly greenhouse gas emissions and water. Spills from existing pipelines have put pipeline route communities on high alert. The over 1 million gallons spilt into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in July 2010 is still proving impossible to clean up.

Public dissent over these impacts is starting to make itself felt in the tar sands belt through increasingly vehement opposition to the pipeline projects that the landlocked industry relies upon for its future growth.

Keystone XL was already two years behind schedule when the State Department announced a further 12-18 month delay in early November 2011. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway faces unprecedented opposition from British Columbia First Nation communities along its route and among the coastal communities that would be threatened by the resulting oil tanker traffic. It has been delayed at least one year.

Significant opposition also exists against less discussed projects such as Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge’s Trailbreaker project. see map

While it seems unlikely that all of these options will fail, the challenges they face may delay and disrupt the tar sands industry’s ambitious schedule for growth.

Many international oil companies have become hugely dependent on Canadian tar sands for their future growth. The resource constitutes the biggest single liquids component in the long term reserves for some of them. To achieve the production growth that would monetize these reserves will require all the currently proposed pipelines and more.

Such is the size of the resource and the limitations of the regional market, tar sands must access the open ocean to grow. Building enough pipeline capacity to deep water ports may turn out to be the greatest challenge facing tar sands production growth.

The report shows that:

• Tar sands oil is among the biggest component of many major oil company reserves;
• Four major tar sands pipeline proposals face significant public opposition in the United States and Canada;
• Without these pipelines, the industry’s ambitious growth plans cannot be realized.
• The incentive for Gulf Coast refiners to make long term commitments to deliveries from tar sands pipelines is diminishing due to uncertainty over permitting and growing supplies from elsewhere.

This report is part of an ongoing dialogue with the investment community that examines a wide range of investment risk issues surrounding tar sands production.  As some of the world’s most expensive to produce oil, the tar sands is not the great boon that the industry would have investors believe. The kind of exponential growth the industry would like to achieve depends on benign circumstances on a number of levels including low regulation and cheap natural gas. It also requires a social license to operate, not only within Alberta, but among the communities through which pipelines will pass and in communities hosting refineries that process this heavy sour oil. What we are increasingly seeing is that this social license is not always forthcoming.

Download the full report

Nov. 30, 2011, Durban, South Africa – Major multilateral development banks have provided financing of over $40 billion to fossil-fuel energy development since 2008, according to the new Shift the Subsidies database (http://shiftthesubsidies.org), launched today by Oil Change International.   Over the same time period, clean energy projects have received only $25.5 billion from those banks.

The Subsidy Shift database covers all known loans, grants, and financial guarantees to the energy sector by the multilateral development banks.  All of these banks are supported by taxpayer money from the developed countries.

On Monday, in Durban at the United Nations climate talks, Jonathan Pershing, deputy special envoy on climate change for the United States., said that U.S. contributions to the fast-start climate finance facility agreed at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 included financing from multilateral banks.

“If the United States is going to claim credit for fast start finance commitments for clean energy projects, it’s only fair that they be docked for their fossil fuel finance from the same institutions,” said Steve Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International.  “Unfortunately, as this new database shows, the U.S. and all developed nations continue to support fossil fuels significantly more than clean energy.”

The database also rates projects on whether or not they are intended to provide energy access for the poor.  For lending in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, only 10 percent of multilateral development bank financing addresses the grave need to provide energy access to the billions of people who live without modern energy.

“Bank officials justify their lending for fossil fuels by pointing to the need for energy access for the poor,” said Traci Romine, International Finance Campaign Director for Oil Change International. “We completely agree that energy access is an urgent priority, but the hidden truth is that only 10% of development bank lending supports this important goal.”

The database was developed with research from Oil Change International (OCI), CEE Bankwatch Network, and the Bank Information Center (BIC).  World Bank Group data is presented for FY2008 to FY2011.  Regional development bank data – including the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) – covers the period from FY2008 to FY2010.

BASIC South Initiative – Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale (Italy) – Friends of the Earth U.S. – groundWork (South Africa) – International Rivers – Oil Change International – Sierra Club (U.S.) – Urgewald (Germany) – Vasudha Foundation (India)

Nov. 29 2011, Durban, South Africa— Civil society organizations from around the world released a report today at the Durban climate talks that highlights the contradictions inherent in the World Bank Group’s presence here. While the Bank seeks a leading role in climate finance, it has been unable to finalize an energy strategy and continues to finance dirty energy projects.

Just a year after the World Bank Group’s (WBG) heavily criticized US$3 billion loan for one of the world’s largest coal plants in South Africa, the institution is considering supporting a new coal plant in Kosovo.

The report titled, Unclear on the Concept: How Can the World Bank Group Lead on Climate Finance without an Energy Strategy? finds that “in spite of its climate-friendly rhetoric, the WBG continues to disproportionately fund dirty energy projects. In fact, nearly half of energy lending – more than US$15 billion – went to fossil fuels over the past four years.”

The report includes data from the Shift the Subsidies database, which tracks multilateral development bank energy lending. It demonstrates how the WBG is experiencing clear difficulties in synching its core lending with climate goals. Given the difficulties and contradictions, the institution should focus on cleaning up its own act before making further forays into climate finance initiatives.

Civil society advocates claim this lending directly undermines the institutions credibility as a leading institution in climate finance. “The Bank should put its money where its mouth is and stop financing dirty energy,” said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth.

Worse, the Bank is unable to finalize its own energy strategy – a document that will guide lending at the institution for the next decade. “How can the Bank guide the world into a clean energy future when it can’t guide itself over the next decade?” asks Justin Guay from the Sierra Club.

Without an energy strategy the Bank is risking its institutional credibility with its current consideration of a new coal project in Kosovo. The project will provide public financing for the most heavily polluting form of coal (lignite) and comes on the heels of the WBG decision last year to lend more than US$3 billion to help build the Medupi coal plant in South Africa. “The lignite project will be a huge burden for the people of Kosovo,” says Nezir Sinani, a member of Kosovan civil society. “It will severely impact our health and we will pay higher energy prices.”

The institution’s actions– its core energy lending, its inability to pass a forward-looking energy strategy, and its mixed involvement in climate-related initiatives – demonstrate that the WBG does not take climate change impacts nearly seriously enough.

In order to change course and support developing countries in a transition to truly clean energy, the report calls upon the World Bank Group to:

• Stop funding dirty energy projects, either directly or indirectly, and
• Pass an energy strategy that promotes truly clean energy and energy access.

For a copy of the report: http://priceofoil.org/educate/resources/unclear-on-the-concept

The report, Payback Time? The Supercommittee & Fossil Fuel Subsidies, comes on the heels of news reports that the American Petroleum Institute has launched a television advertising blitz in the Republican supercommittee states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania to ensure that those Committee members vote to maintain costly and outdated subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

The key findings of the report show:

• The 12 members of the supercommittee have accepted at least $4.2 million in dirty energy money over the last eleven years.
• Supercommittee members have at least 35 former or current staffers with revolving door ties to dirty energy interests.
• Subsidies to fossil fuels can be conservatively estimated at $10 billion a year or $100 billion over the last decade.

“The supercommittee shouldn’t be giving handouts to their dirty energy donors at the expense of middle class families,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund.

“Hugely profitable oil, coal and gas companies are the last place our tax dollars should be going to. Before they even think about touching programs that provide a vital safety net for the poor and middle class, the supercommittee needs to eliminate these wasteful handouts,” says Steve Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International. “The supercommittee members need to stand with the American people, not their campaign donors, and end this outrageous waste of taxpayer money.”

Numerous polls have demonstrated that nearly two thirds of Americans (across party lines) are in favor of ending these dirty energy subsidies.

A full copy of the report, including full analyses of all 12 members of the supercommittee can be reviewed here.

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Oil Change International is one of the founding members of the Dirty Energy Money Campaign, a multi-organizational effort to confront and reduce the political influence of the fossil fuel industry in Congress.

Public Campaign Action Fund is a national nonprofit watchdog group working to improve America’s election laws and to hold elected officials accountable. Learn more at www.campaignmoney.org

The debate has recently focused most intensely on the false dichotomy of jobs versus environment. False because the transition that we must make to a clean energy future will likely create more jobs than maintaining the dirty energy status quo and also because the claims about the pipeline’s job creation potential have been blown up out of all proportion.

Another aspect of the pipeline that has a plethora of bogus claims surrounding it is the idea that it will somehow enhance America’s energy security. A barrel of oil from Canada must be better than one from the Middle East, right? Wrong. There is simply no evidence that since Canada became America’s number one source of imported oil (since 2005), America has enjoyed any relief from the volatility of the global oil market.

I will be attending the hearing in DC tomorrow and this is what I will be telling the State Department.

Keystone XL is effectively an export pipeline

As an export pipeline, Keystone XL will have no impact on U.S. dependence on Mideast and Venezuelan oil. Refiners in the U.S. Gulf Coast are at the forefront of a 60% increase in U.S. petroleum product exports since 2007. Latin American and European markets need diesel and Gulf Coast refiners are increasingly providing it. In fact, with U.S. gasoline demand set to decline over the long term, the refiners that will receive Keystone XL crude have configured their refineries to maximize diesel production from heavy sour crudes such as that from the tar sands. This means that Keystone XL is serving growing global demand rather than U.S. domestic need. Keystone XL oil will therefore be as-well-as, rather than instead of, other sources of heavy sour crude such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Canadian oil brings no protection against energy supply disruption

Canadian oil runs at full capacity and does not hold spare capacity to be brought on stream in times of an emergency. Canadian oil may add to U.S. and global supply but when a major disruption occurs in the global oil market, Canada cannot boost production without investing billions of dollars and building new infrastructure.

Canadian oil brings no protection against oil price spikes

Canada has been America’s largest source of oil imports since 2005 (Excel Document). Today the United States imports over 2.5 million barrels per day (Mb/d) of crude oil and petroleum products from Canada. This is more than double the imports from Saudi Arabia and 38% more than current imports from all Persian Gulf states. Yet this increasing reliance on Canadian oil has not protected America from oil price spikes. In 2008, as oil hit $147 per barrel, U.S. gasoline prices spiked over $4 per gallon. In 2011, when the Libyan crisis took about 1.6 Mb/d out of the global oil market, U.S. gasoline prices jumped 26% in two months despite U.S. stocks of crude oil hitting record highs. The dominance of Canadian oil in the U.S. market provided no buffer against the vagaries of the global oil market on these occasions.

Canadian oil will not significantly decrease OPEC revenues

It feels good to send oil money to Canada rather than to hostile regimes that threaten America. But does it make a difference? According to the EIA, OPEC countries are likely to earn over $1 trillion in 2011 from oil exports, rising slightly in 2012. The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2035, under a business as usual scenario in which tar sands production grows in line with industry ambitions, OPEC’s share of the global oil market will rise from 41% to 52%. With 77% of the world’s proven oil reserves, OPEC producers will always dominate the world’s oil market. That the U.S. is buying more oil from Canada matters little to OPEC producers. Canada pumping more oil allows them to pump less in order to maintain high prices. Revenues to OPEC are therefore likely to be stable with or without Canadian oil.

Only demand reduction enhances America’s energy security

Demand reduction in line with climate limits decreases expensive tar sands production and reduces revenues to OPEC by $5 trillion:

The International Energy Agency calculates energy supply and demand if the world were to stay within conservative limits for stabilizing climate change. This strategy not only provides the environmental security of a more stable climate than business as usual but also significantly enhances American and global energy security. In this scenario, by 2035:

• U.S. oil consumption would be 40% less than today;
• U.S. oil imports would be 45% less than business as usual;
• Tar sands production would be 30% less than business as usual;
• OPEC revenues would be cut by $5 trillion from business as usual.

Most importantly, only in this scenario is U.S. and global oil demand firmly in a downward trajectory, meaning that demand decline is a long term trend enhancing environmental and energy security beyond 2035.

For more on Keystone XL and energy security see here.

To attend the hearing in Washington as well as a rally in support of pipeline opponents see here.

To attend the premiere of Pipe Dreams, a new documentary about the pipeline followed by a discussion panel see here.

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Oil for Export, Not for U.S. Energy Security

Industry Documents Reveal Scheme to Reach Lucrative Markets Abroad

Download the full report.

In pushing for the Obama Administration’s approval of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the North American oil industry and its political patrons argue that the pipeline is necessary for American energy security and its construction will help wean America of dependence on Mideast oil. But a closer look at the new realities of the global oil market and at the companies who will profit from the pipeline reveals a completely different story: Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.

A new report from Oil Change International lays out the case, based on data and documents from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Canadian National Energy Board, corporate disclosures to regulators and investors, and analysis of the rapidly shifting oil market.

The facts:

• Keystone XL is an export pipeline. The Port Arthur, Texas, refiners at the end of its route are focused on expanding exports to Europe, and Latin America. Much of the fuel refined from the pipeline’s heavy crude oil will never reach U.S. drivers’ tanks.

• Valero, the key customer for crude oil from Keystone XL, has explicitly detailed an export strategy to its investors. Because Valero’s Port Arthur refinery is in a Foreign Trade Zone, the company can carry out its strategy tax-free.

• In a shrinking U.S. market, Keystone XL is not needed. Since the project was announced, the oil industry acknowledges that higher fuel economy standards and slow economic growth mean declining U.S. oil demand, even as domestic production is booming. Oil from Keystone XL will therefore displace American crude from new, “unconventional” domestic fields in Texas or North Dakota.

“To issue a presidential permit for the Keystone XL, the Administration must find that the pipeline serves the national interest,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International. “An honest assessment shows that rather than serving U.S. interests, Keystone XL serves only the interests of tar sands producers and shippers, and a few Gulf Coast refiners aiming to export the oil.”

Valero has contracted to take at least 100,000 barrels of tar sands crude a day from Keystone XL until 2030. It’s publicly disclosed business model relies on refining heavy sour crude for export. It is upgrading its Port Arthur refinery to process heavy sour into diesel fuel. Its investor presentations clearly show it plans to ship diesel to Latin America and Europe.

Valero – the Texas independent behind last year’s attempt to overturn California’s clean fuel standards – is the only U.S. company among the six customers who have jointly committed to purchase 76 percent of Keystone XL’s initial capacity. The other refiners are Shell, which is part of Motiva, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and the Saudi government, and Total of France, both of which have newly upgraded facilities in Port Arthur tax-free trade zones.  There are also two Canadian producers and one international oil-trading firm in the group of six customers.

“Oil is a fundamentally global market – the idea that the pipeline enhances our energy security is a scam.” said Kretzmann. “Let’s hope the Obama Administration doesn’t fall for it.  In fact, the only way to truly reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to reduce our dependence on all oil. Let’s not fool ourselves that we will achieve ‘energy independence’ by serving as a middleman for access to overseas markets.”

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Oil industry lobbyists have made maintaining these handouts a top priority.  The American Petroleum Institute announced earlier this year that it would for the first time begin directly donating to candidates, adding to the more than $13.6 million the oil industry gave to Members of Congress during the last election cycle.

To reveal the influence of oil industry money on the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, Oil Change International analyzed campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics and discovered the following key facts:

• The six Republicans received $1,433,584 in oil and gas industry campaign contributions over their careers.  More than half of that money – $791,474 – was donated in just the 2010 election cycle.

• The six Republicans on the committee received 11 times more money from oil companies in the 2010 election cycle than the six Democrats ($791,474 to $71,700)

• Three members—Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)— received 83%, or $657,574, of these contributions.

• Overall, the 12 members have received $2,147,533 from Big Oil during their careers.

This year, Rep. Upton, chair of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, has repeatedly tried to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency and voted six times to keep subsidies in place for the oil and gas industry donors that have given him more than $207,000 in campaign contributions over the years.  Allied coal and utility interests have given Rep. Upton an additional $300,000 during his career.

The top U.S. oil companies reported $73 billion in profits in just the first six months of this year, so they can afford to live without these handouts. Since the committee has been tasked with finding a “balanced” approach to reduce our deficit, these subsidies should be one of the first things on the chopping block.

Published jointly by Oil Change International and Public Campaign.

Additional background on subsidy removal can be found in this Oil Change International factsheet (pdf).  Oil Change International and Public Campaign are founding members of the Dirty Energy Money coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Elizabeth Bast, Oil Change International, 202-641-7203, ebast@priceofoil.org
Patricia Brooks, ActionAid USA, 202-351-1757

Report Finds World Bank’s Energy Lending Fails to Target the Poorest, Calls for Decentralized Clean Energy to Achieve Development Goals

WASHINGTON, D.C. – New research released today by Oil Change International, ActionAid International and Vasudha Foundation in India reveals the World Bank Group’s energy lending is not targeted at the world’s poorest.  The report finds only 9 percent of the World Bank Group’s energy lending in the last two years targets energy for the poor.

A review of World Bank energy lending documents shows that the large majority of the Bank’s energy lending does not focus on the 20 percent of the global population who lack access to energy, with over 90 percent of the energy portfolio failing to focus on creating new electricity connections for those who lack access; on electricity for services important to the poor, such as health clinics, schools, or telecommunications; or on energy for productive uses in energy-poor communities.

The report also shows that increased energy access for the poor can be achieved affordably through decentralized renewable energy – rather than through the centralized fossil fuel projects that are often financed.

“With many people without access to energy services living in rural areas far from the electricity grid, we have found that decentralized renewable energy systems are both cheaper and more reliable than extending the grid to remote communities,” said Srinivas Krishnawamy of Vasudha Foundation, an author of the report.

“Poor people are the ones suffering from pollution, climate change, and negative health impacts from fossil fuels. The best approach, and the fairest, is to focus on clean, off-grid energy solutions for the poor that not only provide them energy, but decrease the harmful impacts of our addiction to fossil fuels,” said Ilana Solomon, Senior Policy Analyst with ActionAid.

The World Bank Group has indicated an intention to focus on energy access and clean energy as part of its new energy sector strategy, which is currently being revised.

“If the World Bank is serious about fighting poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, it needs to prove it by shifting lending to benefit people without access to energy and to clean energy options that will not increase the impact of global warming on the world’s most vulnerable populations. The World Bank’s current energy portfolio leaves much to be desired for the world’s poorest and for protecting the planet,” said Elizabeth Bast of Oil Change International, one of the report’s authors.

The report released today, ‘Access to Energy for the Poor,’ can be found at: http://priceofoil.org/educate/resources/access-to-energy-for-the-poor-the-clean-energy-option/