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CBO has assessed how much the supply of various types of renewable fuels would have to increase over the next several years to comply with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), and how food and fuel prices would vary in three scenarios.
- Blog Post
Buyers of new electric vehicles receive federal tax credits of up to $7,500. How do the credits compare to the total lifetime cost of owning those vehicles and to the reduction in gasoline use and greenhouse gas emissions from driving them?
- Blog Post
Terry Dinan, senior advisor in CBO’s Microeconomic Studies Division, discusses her testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
- Blog Post
CBO estimates that federal policies to promote the manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles (including some policies that support other types of fuel-efficient vehicles) will have a total budgetary cost of about $7.5 billion through 2019. Tax credits for buying electric vehicles—which account for about one-fourth of that budgetary cost—are likely to have the greatest impact on vehicle sales. Today CBO released a study on the effects of federal tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles. CBO finds that:
- Blog Post
CBO has analyzed a proposal—in a report requested by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee—to immediately open most federal lands to oil and gas leasing.
- Blog Post
Coal-powered facilities account for roughly a third of all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, and most climate scientists believe that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could have costly consequences.
- Blog Post
Energy use—for electricity, transportation, and heating and air conditioning—is pervasive throughout the U.S. economy, representing 8.4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2010. About 80 percent of the energy used by households and businesses comes from oil, natural gas, and coal; the rest comes from nuclear power and renewable sources, such as wind and the sun. Disruptions in the supply of commodities used to produce energy tend to raise energy prices, imposing an increased burden on households and businesses.
- Blog Post
Federal highway and mass transit programs are financed largely by a variety of transportation-related excise taxes. The largest share of the revenues comes from the federal tax on gasoline, including gasoline that is blended with ethanol. Revenues from those taxes are credited to the Highway Trust Fund, and most of the spending for those programs is attributable to that fund. Because the gasoline tax is set as a fixed amount per gallon (currently 18.4 cents), policies that are designed to reduce gasoline consumption would decrease the amounts credited to the fund.
- Blog Post
The federal government has used both tax preferences and spending programs to provide financial support for the development and production of fuels and energy technologies in recent decades. At the request of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, CBO released a brief addressing the following questions:
- Blog Post
The destruction and degradation of forestland, caused mainly by expanded agricultural activity in tropical developing countries, currently accounts for roughly 12 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Slowing or halting deforestation in developing countries is a potentially low-cost way to help reduce global GHG emissions.