Changes

# direct spending, in the form of expenditures on research, development, and other programs.

A 2011 analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, [http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf "Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers: 2008-10"] found dozens of companies, including fossil fuels, used tax breaks and various tax dodging methods to have a negative tax balance between 2008 and 2010, while making billions in profits. The study found 32 companies in the fossil-fuel industry -- such as [[Peabody Energy]], [[ConEd]], and [[PG&E]] -- transformed a tax responsibility of $17.3 billion on $49.4 billion in pretax profits into a tax benefit of $6.5 billion, for a net gain of $24 billion. D.C.-area utility [[Pepco]] had the highest negative tax rate of the 280 companies surveyed in the report, with negative taxes of $508 billion on $882 pretax profits, a negative tax rate of 57 percent.

* The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($6.3 billion) - The main structure of the program is to provide low-income households with the means to make their utility payments, the vast majority of which is energy generated by fossil fuels. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has tabulated the percentage of households using fossil versus non-fossil heating fuels in 2001, and ELI used the percentage as a proxy for fossil versus non-fossil expenditures for 2002-2008.

* Black Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1 billion) - pays health benefits to coal miners afflicted with pneumoconiosis, a long-term degenerative disease from constant inhalation of coal dust, also known as “black lung.” Created in 1978, it is funded through an excise tax on coal to support a trust fund covering health costs of affected workers, however the tax is not sufficient to cover all costs, and the BLDTF was given “indefinite authority to borrow” from the U.S. General Fund. By the end of FY 2008, the BLDTF had accrued nearly $13 billion in debt. In 2008, Congress partially “bailed out” the BLDTF, which ELI tabulated as a subsidy to coal.

==External Costs==