LONG HISTORY OF U.S. ENERGY SUBSIDIES

Abstract

U.S. GOVERNMENT subsidies for energy are as old as the nation, says Nancy Pfund, a managing partner at DBL Investors, a venture capital firm, and an anthropologist. In a recent study for DBL Investors , Pfund and coauthor Ben Healey, a Yale University economics graduate student and former Massachusetts legislative committee director, trace U.S. government energy incentives back to 1789, when leaders of the new nation slapped a tariff on the sale of British coal slipped into U.S. ports as ship ballast. Using government documents, academic papers, and a mix of other data and reports, Pfund and Healey offer a historical perspective on today’s debate over energy subsidies. Their study finds a paucity of government support for renewable energy sources compared with past government investment in coal, gas, oil, or nuclear energy sources, which helped the country transition to new energy technologies and infrastructures. The study comes as President Barack Obama continues to ...