The Zombies of the U.S. Tax Code: Why Fossil Fuels Subsidies Seem Impossible to Kill

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/climate/tax-breaks-oil-gas-us.html

By Lisa Friedman, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: As a candidate in 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. campaigned to end billions of dollars in annual tax breaks to oil and gas companies within his first year in office. It’s a pledge he has been unable to keep as president. ...Mr. Biden’s wish is opposed by the oil industry, Republicans in Congress and a handful of Democrats. ...The oil and gas industry enjoys nearly a dozen tax breaks, including incentives for domestic production and write-offs tied to foreign production. ...The Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker, run by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, calculated the total to be about $14 billion in 2022. ...The oldest, known as “intangible drilling costs,” was created by the Revenue Act of 1913 and was aimed at encouraging the development of U.S. resources. The deduction allows companies to write off as much as 80 percent of the costs of drilling, .... Another subsidy, dating from 1926 and known as the depletion allowance, initially let oil companies deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent, a number that seemed strangely specific. “We could have taken a 5 or 10 percent figure, but we grabbed 27.5 percent because we were not only hogs but the odd figure made it appear as though it was scientifically arrived at,” Senator Tom Connally, the Texas Democrat who sponsored the break and who died in 1963.... 

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