Buried Out of Sight: Uncovering Pennsylvania’s Hidden Fossil Fuel Subsidies
On Feb. 22, PennFuture and partners released a new report that shows the eye-popping depths that Pennsylvania goes to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. With the help of tax documents, news articles, and a whole lot of digging, PennFuture was able to identify more than 50 ways that our state and local governments subsidize fossil fuels.
In total, our analyses reveal that Pennsylvania provided $3.8 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in Fiscal Year 2019 by systematically disabling many of its standard tools for collecting tax revenues, allowing the industry to extract public resources at little to no charge, and awarding the industry grants and tax credits. Meanwhile, in the same time period, the industry imposed $11.1 billion worth external costs to the state and its residents.
As the cost of fossil fuel subsidies on Pennsylvania taxpayers and residents continues to creep upward, we urge the Governor and the General Assembly to pursue the following:
- End Economic Reliance on Fossil Fuels
- Reduce subsidies for greenhouse gas emissions
- Shift the public health burden of shale gas development to the industry
- Restore $2.0 billion in foregone revenues
- Track and reduce fossil fuel subsidies
To read our report, please click here!