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Comment by ghouse | Hacker News Reader

And if they scrap oil subsidies too, the market can figure it all out. But looks like most direct and indirect O&G subsidies will remain.

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If we want to leave it all to the markets, we need to consider the externalities too, e.g. through a carbon tax.

Which doesn't even take into account other serious externalities like smog.

I'm generally in favour of allowing the market to do its work. That said, in the case of emissions, it is too expensive to attribute and process torts, so the true cost of emissions is rarely ever passed on to even very large polluters who have damaged a lot of property. This is why the original mandate of the EPA is so legitimate.

I'm with you on the subsidies though.

~ rolls eyes ~ if you seriously believe the market magically deals with externalized costs

The market doesn't care about external costs, you're right.

One thing to keep in mind though is that we may be nearing the time in which the market could handle this because renewables are getting very cheap. I'm not sure if we're at the point where if you dropped all oil subsidies that renewables would be cheaper (maybe not? I haven't done the math) but we should be getting close if we're not already there. At that point the market could, in theory, move to the one with the higher profit margins while still not caring about external costs.

O&G companies are able to write off the cost of doing business just like other businesses. They are not "subsidies".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunki...

If I run a paint factory and all my competitors have to pay to to have their toxic waste hauled away and properly disposed of, but the taxpayer foots the bill for disposing my waste, that sounds like a subsidy to me.

Does it cease to be a subsidy if I'm dumping the waste in a river and the government is hauling it away from there, rather than collecting it at the factory gate?

Seems to me anyone who's opposed to government subsidies would also be opposed to profiting from negative externalities.

It’s a ballsy move to compare the oil and gas industries to health. There is plenty to criticise about the way the US healthcare system is run, but do people really begrudge treating the two industries differently?

Yes, I do begrudge the dickens out of people who insist that being able to deduct oil exploration costs is an unfair "subsidy" to oil and whose removal would instantly turbocharge renewables by itself.

Letting companies deduct expenses like everyone else is not a subsidy.

It's like it's become part of the common mythos, that US oil companies get massive cash subsidies that are the sole reason they're not beaten by renewables, but the moment you apply any scrutiny it falls apart.

(Environmental concerns are legit, but the lack of better regulation is a non-standard usage of "subsidy" and people go further to claim that tax-deductions-everyone-gets are subsidies.)

Do not think that some industries should be disincentivised and others incentivised?

I think specific activities, irrespective of industry, should have their external costs priced in.

I don't think that failure to do so the same thing as a cash subsidy.

So stick approach rather than a carrot? If that’s what you mean I think I prefer this.

That author claims that tax exemptions aren't subsidies "according to Dictionary.com".

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