February 2, 2010

Obama's Budget

While President Obama has slightly decreased funding for the EPA, the EPA's budget does include $21 million to implement the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule and $43 million to implement regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. 

The message seems to be that the administration intends to regulate greenhouse gases if Congress doesn't pass the Energy Bill. 

The proposed budget plans to eliminate $36.5 billion in tax breaks to the oil and natural gas industry and $2.3 billion for the coal sector between 2011-2020. Note that fossil fuels get $70.2 billion a year in subsidies—and that excludes implicit subsidies like military spending—so this is the tip of the iceberg. 

But that money seems to be headed to nuclear, which is getting an increase of $36 billion in loan guarantees, raising that total to $54 billion. The Congressional Budget Office considers that probability of default on these loan guarantees to be very high, well over 50%. 

No comments: