U.S. Energy Tax Policy

Energy tax policy in the United States has attempted to achieve two broad objectives. First, policymakers have sought to reduce oil import dependence and enhance national security through a variety of domestic energy investment and production tax subsidies. Second, environmental concerns have led to subsidization of a variety of renewable and energy efficiency technologies via the tax code. While these two broad goals continue to guide policy, enacted policies that solely focus on achieving only one of the goals are often inconsistent with policies solely designed to achieve the other goal. This book explores energy tax policy and expenditures and examines how current revenue losses resulting from energy tax provisions compare to historical losses which provides a foundation for understanding how current tax policy evolved.