Research

"Paying for Climate Chaos" reveals the staggering scope of federal government subsidies for fossil fuel production.

This infographic compares the economic viability of oil production in discovered but undeveloped U.S. fields with and without subsidies. It shows that at current prices, almost half of all oil production is dependent on federal and state subsidies.

This factsheet shines a light on the millions in campaign contributions made to our elected officials over the past 10 years and the billions in fossil fuel subsidies the industry gets in return.

With Shell in the Arctic, the scale and volume of the blowback from the environmental community has clearly caught the Administration flat footed. When confronted, they usually first mumble something about highest standards (which is completely irrelevant to the climate argument) but if pressed, the Administration and its defenders invoke a sober, scolding tone to explain: 1) We need oil and we will need oil for a long time. While we’re all concerned about climate, we’re still going to need oil and gas in the future and we might as well make as much of it as possible right here at home. 2) U.S. oil production is essentially irrelevant for climate, because “more oil production in one place generally means less oil production elsewhere – that’s how markets and prices work”. Together, these two arguments form what we can think of as the Convenient Lie that we can be serious about fighting climate change and also approve virtually all new fossil fuel infrastructure in the U.S. It’s the Convenient Lie that keeps us from dealing with the Inconvenient Truth.

Public support for fossil fuel exploration in rich countries is nearly triple the amount pledged to the Green Climate Fund.

G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. This new report documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the G20 countries.

A new report by Oil Change International and the Sierra Club, Polluting Our Democracy and Our Environment: Dirty Fuels Money in Politics, demonstrates the enormous amount of campaign finance contributions pouring into Congress by the fossil fuel industry, a problem that is only getting worse. With the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, super-wealthy donors can now funnel unlimited amounts of outside money into political campaigns and elections. As a result of this ruling, outside spending increased by an enormous11,761 percentbetween the 2008 and 2012 elections.

This Congress is on track to be the dirtiest ever. In the current cycle (since January 2011) dirty energy companies have spent at least $43.5 million on influencing federal elections in America.

This briefing finds that the transport of tar sands oil through pipelines in the United States is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which creates a free ride worth over $375 million to tar sands oil producers between 2010 and 2017.

Members of Congress Who Take More Money from Big Oil Vote More Often for Big Oil at the Expense of the Public Interest