A drilled listeners, Happy Earth Day, and bringing you a little preview of a hearing that's happening in Congress today. The focus of that hearing is fossil fuel subsidies, what they are, why we have them, how they block climate action, and what can be done to get rid of them. This should be interesting because for years the industry has claimed that it doesn't actually get any subsidies. So I'm not quite sure how they're going to argue against getting
rid of a thing they claim they don't have. But I'm sure we'll see how that plays out. I have with me today.
Rep.
Ro Kanna, you represent Silicon Valley in Congress, and has called this hearing. He's the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reforms Subcommittee on the Environment. The title of this hearing, which is the first one being held in Congress today Earth Day, is titled the Role of fossil fuel Subsidies in Preventing action on the Climate Crisis. You might remember this being a big topic of conversation
during the election. People were shocked that Joe Biden would suggest such a thing, and it does sound kind of shocking, but it also seems like a pretty obvious first step to doing anything on climate. According to Conna, under President Trump, the fossil fuel industry received between ten point four billion dollars and fifteen point two billion dollars of direct pandemic relief funds. I'll stick a link to the hearing in the show notes. Highly recommend you tune in to that
this morning. And in the meantime, here is a little bit of a sneak peek with Rep. Row Conna.
I'm ro Conna. I represent Silicon Valley in the United States Congress. I'm the chair of the Environment Subcommittee for the Oversight Committee, and on Earthday, we are having a hearing focused on ending fossil fuel subsidies as part of the infrastructure built. President Biden, as you know, ran on eliminating all fossil fuel subsidies, and to his credit, his proposal, the Infrastructure Plan has the elimination of those fossil fuel subsidies.
So the hearing will drill down in exactly what does that mean, making sure that we're comprehensive in getting rid of these subsidies, and we want to insist that this is going to be part of infrastructure, that it's not taken out by a Senator got it.
Can you explain what some of these specific subsidies are because I know the American Petroleum Institut likes to say the fossil fuel industry doesn't have any subsidies, so they should be fine with this.
Well, they have a lot of subsidies. There are subsidies for tax preferences that allow industries to drill, that allow them to deduct for drilling costs. There is accounting basically it's a last in and first out accounting for fossil fuel companies that allow them to manipulate and take advantage.
There's a cost of depletion which they have used. There are offshore drilling leases that they can deduct the use of loss of royalties for So I know some of this is technical, but when you look through the code, there are a number of these provisions.
Who is going to be speaking at the hearing? What's the plan for that?
So we have Greta Thunberg, which we're very excited about, and that we have a number of other experts who have really looked at what the fossil fuel subsidies are and what needs to be eliminated.
Is there any thinking around, you know, the fact that this getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies could have a follow on a fact in terms of how investible fossil fuel projects are forks.
Yes, no, absolutely. I mean here you have the government's actually lagging. I mean you have the financial industry saying carbon is a risk and we ought to be getting out of carbon, even you know Blackrock with Larry Fink and even some of the Exon even the new Exon CEO is talking about how they need to diversify and
get out of some of the high carbon areas. And so that at the time where you have the private sector finally having one of these moments, you still have the government putting our thumb on the scale favoring the fossil fuel industry. It makes no sense. And so what we're saying is, if you're not going to do the trillions of dollars the.
Favor renewable energy, which we should, but if you're gonna if you're going to do one thing, at least stop putting your hand on the scale on the side of fossil fuels.
At least create a level playing field, right right? Is there? What?
But has kind of the industry response been to this I know this call is not new, it's been it's been around for a while.
But what are they kind of saying now about about this push?
The call is not new. I mean they have the same arguments that it's going to hurt jobs, that it's going to hurt business. What is new is that the President of the United States is putting it in their plan. And what is new is that we have a House of Representatives committed to passing it. That would be historic, and I think this may be one of the first
hearings and comprehensively ending fossil fuel subsidies. But we will take on some of these myths about why this is not going to lessen jobs, if anything, is going to incentivize the creation of a lot more jobs in by the way, the very areas where ch have fossil fuel industry, there is there are more jobs to be had in making those areas environment only sustainable than there are in the current jobs created by these subsidies.
You know, one thing I always hear about this is concerned that the price of gas will go up.
How do you kind of answer that that worry?
That is the biggest worry in polling suggests that too more than jobs, more than anything. As people's concerned about the price of gas, and our view is that the studies show that this isn't going to have that impact, that the subsidies aren't large enough to have that impact on the price of gas. And to the extent that there is some increase, I think we ought to be providing a worker tax credit or some credit to mitigate that, and so there are ways to do it without raising the price of gas.
Yeah, I always think about like when I think about that, that you know, there have been in the past where well, I don't know, I feel like there have been many times in the past where the industry will sort of artificially to press the price of gas themselves if they want to spur demand. So it makes me laugh a little bit when they bring that one up.
That's a great point. That's a great point.
Anything else that people should know about this?
What can kind of the general public do if they want to learn more?
Well, we have eighteen environmental groups around the country mobilizing behind this, So this is a big deal for the environmental movement. I believe it's the highest priority in the infrastructure bill, which is saying stop helping fossil fuels become a bigger presence and the people listening and tuning in one. They can tune into the hearings, share what the experts
are saying, Share share what Greta Thunberg is saying. Two, they can insist that the end of fossil fuel subsidies has to be part of modern infrastructure, that that is a non negotiable.
Okay, well, thank you very much for talking with me.
Thank you.
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