The "End Polluter Welfare Act of 2025" aims to comprehensively eliminate federal subsidies and financial incentives for fossil fuel production across various government agencies and the tax code. It broadly defines fossil fuels to include coal, petroleum, natural gas, and their derivatives used for fuel. The bill seeks to increase the financial burden on the fossil fuel industry by removing existing benefits and imposing new costs. Key non-tax provisions include significantly increasing royalty rates for coal, oil, and natural gas leases on federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf to 18.75% , while eliminating royalty relief and interest payments on royalty overpayments. The legislation removes liability limits for offshore facilities and pipeline operators under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. It also restricts U.S. contributions to international financial institutions that support fossil fuel projects and terminates the authority and funds for the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management . Further non-tax measures prohibit the use of funds from the DOE Loan Programs Office, ARPA-E, and USDA assistance for fossil fuel, carbon capture, or non-clean hydrogen projects. Loan guarantees from the Rural Utility Service, funding from various international development agencies, and Department of Transportation funds for rail or port projects transporting fossil fuels are similarly restricted. Under the Internal Revenue Code, the bill terminates numerous tax expenditures for fossil fuels, such as the enhanced oil recovery credit , marginal well credits, and certain special rules for oil and gas wells. It eliminates bonus depreciation, excludes fossil fuel income from qualified business income, denies research credits for fossil fuel-related research, and disallows like-kind exchanges for fossil fuel property. The legislation also mandates longer amortization periods ( seven years ) for various geological, development, mining, and drilling expenditures, while repealing percentage depletion for coal and hard minerals, and ending the LIFO inventory method for fossil fuel companies. New financial burdens include increasing the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund financing rate to 10 cents per barrel and applying environmental taxes to synthetic crude oil. The bill denies tax deductions for oil spill removal costs and damages, and imposes a new 13% tax on crude oil and natural gas produced from the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico . It also repeals the corporate income tax exemption for publicly traded partnerships with fossil fuel-related income and modifies the clean hydrogen production credit to require stricter renewable energy sourcing. Finally, the bill repeals several recent legislative acts or their fossil fuel-related provisions, including sections of the BUILDER Act , the Inflation Reduction Act related to offshore leasing, and various parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act concerning tax credits and methane emissions. It also mandates studies to identify and eliminate any remaining federal fossil fuel subsidies, including those embedded in depreciation schedules, with a mechanism to automatically remove such benefits if identified.
The "End Polluter Welfare Act of 2025" aims to comprehensively eliminate federal subsidies and financial incentives for fossil fuel production across various government agencies and the tax code. It broadly defines fossil fuels to include coal, petroleum, natural gas, and their derivatives used for fuel. The bill seeks to increase the financial burden on the fossil fuel industry by removing existing benefits and imposing new costs. Key non-tax provisions include significantly increasing royalty rates for coal, oil, and natural gas leases on federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf to 18.75% , while eliminating royalty relief and interest payments on royalty overpayments. The legislation removes liability limits for offshore facilities and pipeline operators under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. It also restricts U.S. contributions to international financial institutions that support fossil fuel projects and terminates the authority and funds for the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management . Further non-tax measures prohibit the use of funds from the DOE Loan Programs Office, ARPA-E, and USDA assistance for fossil fuel, carbon capture, or non-clean hydrogen projects. Loan guarantees from the Rural Utility Service, funding from various international development agencies, and Department of Transportation funds for rail or port projects transporting fossil fuels are similarly restricted. Under the Internal Revenue Code, the bill terminates numerous tax expenditures for fossil fuels, such as the enhanced oil recovery credit , marginal well credits, and certain special rules for oil and gas wells. It eliminates bonus depreciation, excludes fossil fuel income from qualified business income, denies research credits for fossil fuel-related research, and disallows like-kind exchanges for fossil fuel property. The legislation also mandates longer amortization periods ( seven years ) for various geological, development, mining, and drilling expenditures, while repealing percentage depletion for coal and hard minerals, and ending the LIFO inventory method for fossil fuel companies. New financial burdens include increasing the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund financing rate to 10 cents per barrel and applying environmental taxes to synthetic crude oil. The bill denies tax deductions for oil spill removal costs and damages, and imposes a new 13% tax on crude oil and natural gas produced from the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico . It also repeals the corporate income tax exemption for publicly traded partnerships with fossil fuel-related income and modifies the clean hydrogen production credit to require stricter renewable energy sourcing. Finally, the bill repeals several recent legislative acts or their fossil fuel-related provisions, including sections of the BUILDER Act , the Inflation Reduction Act related to offshore leasing, and various parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act concerning tax credits and methane emissions. It also mandates studies to identify and eliminate any remaining federal fossil fuel subsidies, including those embedded in depreciation schedules, with a mechanism to automatically remove such benefits if identified.