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Dirty Pork in Green Clothing
"Clean Coal" Programs

$750 million

"[Clean coal] projects required a minimum 50 percent cost-share from industry. Commercially successful projects were supposed to reimburse the federal investment. Less than $2 million of the $1.6 billion expended about one tenth of one percent has been repaid." U.S. Department of Energy, Fiscal Year 2003 Budget, February 4, 2002.

Since 1984, Congress has allocated more than $1.8 billion in federal subsidies to the coal industry through the "Clean Coal" Technology Program (CCTP). The programs subsidize private industry in its effort to develop cleaner burning coal technologies by providing matching federal funds of up to 50 percent. So-called "clean coal" projects waste millions of taxpayer dollars each year on duplicative research that the coal industry should conduct with private sector funding or that has already been done.

Green Scissors Proposal
Cut funding for the President's "Clean Coal" Power Initiative, saving taxpayer $150 million annual, or $750 million over the next five years.

Current Status

In an effort to resuscitate the "clean coal" technologies program, the House energy bill (H.R.6) authorizes $1.8 billion for the President's Clean Coal Power Initiative. The Senate energy bill also includes the first-ever tax break for investment and production utilizing "clean coal" technologies. These tax breaks will cost taxpayers over $2 billion dollars, and will result in increased mercury and global warming related pollution.

The fiscal year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill (H. J. Res. 2) contained $150 million for the "Clean Coal" Power Initiative. Despite this continued outpouring of federal taxpayer dollars, no program has ever demonstrated coal to be anything other than a threat to public and environmental health and a waste of taxpayer money.

Program Hurts Taxpayers

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released at least seven reports documenting waste and mismanagement in the Clean Coal Technology Program. The most recent GAO document, released in June 2001, states that "from a management perspective, we found that many projects had experienced delays, cost overruns, bankruptcies, and performance problems. We also expressed concerns about some of the projects DOE had selected. The document also reiterates that the GAO has identified some projects demonstrating technologies that might have been commercialized without federal assistance."

The coal industry is capable of supporting its own research and development. The corporations that stand to benefit the most from the various "clean coal" subsidies and tax breaks recorded more than $711.7 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2000.


Program Hurts the Environment

Coal is an extremely polluting and carbon-intensive energy source. Burning coal for energy significantly contributes to acid rain and the emission of carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant.

Clean coal plants pose serious environmental risks to communities. In the summer of 2001, American Electric Power's Gavin plant in Chesire, Ohio, using equipment funded through the DOE clean coal program, released sulfuric acid into the air. This poses a serious health hazard to the residents of Chesire.

Clean coal plants are no cleaner than older retrofitted coal plants. The operators of the Healy Clean Coal project, are pushing for federal loans to retrofit the current clean coal plant with traditional technologies. A nearby, retrofitted coal plant is more reliable and pollutes less than the Healy clean coal facility.

Increased coal production and burning poses serious health threats. Burning coal is responsible for about 60 percent of soot-creating sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States and is also a major source of smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution and mercury contamination.

Contacts

• Navin Nayak, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, (202) 546-9707;
• Aileen Roder, Taxpayers for Common Sense, (202) 546-8500 130;
• Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth, (202) 783-7400 x229.