Collateral Damage in the Energy Transition: Government Revenue
The top story in a Financial Times Energy Source newsletter dives into an RFF analysis on the changing role of fossil fuels in government revenue streams.
"As the world shifts to a greener future, the fossil fuel industry is often quick to point out that communities reliant on oil, gas and coal production risk being left in the lurch... it is not only the jobs it provides that will go up in smoke — so too will the taxes and royalties it pays that support local schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
Quantifying the scale of that fiscal hit has long eluded researchers. But a new paper from Resources for the Future, a Washington think-tank, puts a figure on it for the first time — and it is chunky.
Between 2015 and 2020 fossil fuels generated a whopping $138bn annually for localities, states, tribes, and the federal government in the US, the paper finds. That’s more than the GDP of Kuwait."