5 May 2015, ACF Report: Subsidising Big Coal: Handouts to Australia’s biggest coal mining companies through the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme. The Government hands out around $6 billion dollars in fuel tax subsidies every year to a wide range of industries through the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme. Despite only making 1 per cent of claims, the mining industry received 40 per cent of the total amount of fuel tax credits claimed in 2012-13. The biggest average claims in the mining industry are made by the coal miners. This report makes a preliminary estimate of the amount of fuel tax credits claimed by the biggest coal mining companies in Australia. Read More here
Category Archives: The Mitigation Battle
24 April 2015, SMH: Metgasco wants police help for gas drilling at Bentley after court victory. Energy company Metgasco says it will need police to escort gas drilling equipment onto its site on the NSW north coast following a court victory overturning a suspension imposed on it by the state government. Chief executive Peter Henderson said protesters would return to the site at Bentley once the company seeks to start drilling in about three months’ time. “When we drill now we know there are going to be protesters and we will need police in there to uphold our rights,” he said. “Otherwise NSW will be the state of anarchy…..” Read More here
April 2015 A Climate Institute Briefing Note: Updates global climate action where the US lays its cards on the table but what of Australia? The Climate Institute states “Countries that formalised their initial post-2020 emission reduction offers over the last month included the United States, the world’s biggest economy. Others ramped up their domestic climate action, with China’s clamp down on coal use among the key headlines…..” Read More: CI Research Briefing Note
16 April 2015 The New York Times: Judges Hear Challenge to Proposed E.P.A. Rule to Curb Climate Change by Coral Davenport (They just won’t give up will they?!) “WASHINGTON — A panel of federal judges on Thursday appeared inclined to dismiss the first legal challenge to President Obama’s most far-reaching regulation to slow climate change. But in arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, lawyers for the nation’s two largest coal companies, several states and the Environmental Protection Agency offered a preview of what is expected to be a protracted battle over what Mr. Obama hopes to leave as his signature environmental achievement….” Read More here