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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Government credit subsidies for energy development. [Booklet]

Book ·
OSTI ID:7088289
Legislation to establish the Energy Independence Authority was introduced in the 94th Congress, but the bill was not enacted. A new government corporation would have been authorized to provide a total of $100 billion in loans, loan guarantees, price guarantees, purchases of securities, and other financial assistance to companies that the authority believed would make a significant contribution to increasing the domestic supply of energy through technological and related innovation. Several important issues were raised by the Energy Independence Authority proposal. The first is the most fundamental: why does the domestic energy industry need Federal financial assistance in the first place. An immediate corollary is: are there alternative actions that the Federal government could take that would reduce or eliminate the need for new and very expensive programs such as this one. In addition, other questions arise: how effective are Federal credit programs; what are their impacts; how well conceived was this specific program; and what would have been the expected results. This report tries to answer these questions. The introductory chapter attempts to shed light on the basic issue of the need for government subsidy of energy development. Chapter 2 presents an overview of Federal credit programs. Chapter 3 examines in detail the economic justification for the first installment of the EIA proposal, the $6 billion synthetic-fuel plan. Chapter 4 contains an examination of the EIA. Chapter 5 summarizes this report. (MCW)
OSTI ID:
7088289
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English