After Mitt Romney’s latest victories in the Republican primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC, he is increasingly looking like securing his party’s nomination. The former Massachusetts governor obviously thinks so and in his victory speech he completely ignored his Republican rivals to focus his ire on President Obama instead, calling him an “out-of-touch liberal”. … Read More
Subsidies
Keystone XL benefits from taxpayer subsidies
 Sen. Mitch McConnell claimed recently that the Keystone XL Pipeline “doesn’t require a penny of our taxpayer money all the president has to do is approve it.” But our research reveals many places that the pipeline project benefits from taxpayer subsidies. The refineries that are linked to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as committed … Read More
End “the Century of Subsidy”? Maybe next year…
Slowly but surely the battle lines are being drawn for the upcoming Presidential election. President Obama built his State of the Union address on one of fairness. In doing so Obama reminded Americans that there is a clear choice when it comes to the next election. There is also a choice with energy. Before we … Read More
Shift the Subsidies Database Reveals $40 Billion in Fossil Fuel Funding Over Last Four Years
Development Banks Still Financing Dirty Energy New Database Reveals $40 Billion in Fossil Fuel Funding Over Last Four Years 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 … Read More
Civil Society to World Bank: Clean Up Dirty Energy Financing
New report shows institution lacking clean energy lending strategy and instead considering a new loan for coal power in Kosovo 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 … Read More
Dave Camp: You Get What You Pay For
Written by Ross Hammond The fossil fuel industry is nothing if not clever. Rather than try to defend on the merits of their taking billions of dollars a year in government handouts, they’ve decided to change not only the conversation, but the language itself. So for example an attempt to repeal some of the oil … Read More
Pat Toomey: Drill-Baby-Drill, Even in Lake Erie
Written by Ross Hammond Residents of Cleveland and Buffalo (where I grew up) might be forgiven if they were not terribly excited about the prospect of having oil rigs off the shores of their fair cities. But according to Supercommittee member Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, drilling for oil in Lake Erie might just be … Read More
Fred Upton: Dirty Energy’s BFF on the Supercommittee
Written by Ross Hammond There may be no better example of the corrupting influence of Dirty Energy Money in the current Congress than Supercommittee member Representative Fred Upton of Michigan. In July Upton warned of the dangers of private lobbying organizations and special interests “operating in an increasingly competitive lobbying realm in Washington—a world where … Read More
Factual Statement: Big Oil Gets Billions Each Year in Government Handouts
Written by Ross Hammond When it comes to government handouts to the fossil fuel industry, one of the more intractable members of the Supercommittee appears to be Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who voted in both 2010 and 2011 to continue to give our tax money to Big Oil. Senator Kyl made a name for … Read More
Will The Real Max Baucus Stand Up Please?
In less than two weeks the Congressional Supercommittee must submit a plan to Congress to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. One of the big questions is whether the Supercommittee will recommend cutting billions of dollars in subsidies to the hugely profitable oil, gas and coal industries. According to a group of 36 … Read More