House Ways & Means Committee Advances Egregious Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Today the House Ways & Means Committee is advancing a massive budget reconciliation funding bill associated with Congressional Democrats' Build Back Better Act, which would invest $3.5 trillion in an infrastructure spending package. The bill fails to remove massive existing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, including:

• A subsidy enacted in 1916 (Sections 263(c) and 291) allowing many fossil fuel producers to deduct 100 percent of many costs associated with extraction;
• A subsidy enacted in 1926 (Sections 611 through 613A and 291) that allows many producers to deduct 15 percent of gross income annually, which often results in a deduction greater than the value of actual assets;
• A tax credit for "carbon capture and sequestration" (Section 45Q), an unrealized, faulty technological process that is falsely characterized by the industry as a solution to toxic climate emissions.

In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones issued the following statement:

"As climate-driven fires and floods ravage our country, Chairman Neal's failure to tackle billions of dollars in direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry is an egregious dereliction of duty. We must be halting new oil and gas drilling and fracking, not encouraging decades more of it. This abject failure to stand against polluting fossil fuels and stand up for a livable planet now leads to a firm demand to the Senate and the Biden administration: No handouts for fossil fuels can be allowed. Not one dollar will be tolerated."