Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Note: For descriptions of tax expenditures, see Office of Management and Budget.
Analytical Perspectives, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2007,
(Washington, D.C.: 2005).
a
This list does not include five tax expenditures whose primary focus is energy
conservation—exclusion of utility conservation subsidies, deduction for certain
energy efficient commercial building property as well as tax credits for construction
of new energy efficient homes, energy efficiency improvements to existing homes,
and energy efficient appliances—with revenue loss estimates summing to $510
million for fiscal year 2006. This list also does not include tax incentives for general
research and development available for all businesses. Also, the Department of
Treasury does not report tax expenditures with revenue losses below $5 million.
b
First year the Department of the Treasury reported expenditures.
c
The alcohol fuel credit includes, among other things, the volumetric tax credit for
ethanol, which was enacted in 2004. Treasury estimates a $2.1 billion reduction in
excise tax receipts in fiscal year 2006 as a result of income tax revenue losses and
reduced excise tax receipts.
d
This tax expenditure was listed under the community and regional development budget
function in 2004.
e
Summing tax expenditure estimates does not take into account interactions between
individual provisions.
A
PPENDIX
II.
S
COPE AND
M
ETHODOLOGY
To review the Department of Energy's (DOE) research and development (R
and D) funding trends, we analyzed DOE budget authority data for renewable,
fossil, and nuclear energy R and D from fiscal year 1978 through fiscal year 2006.
The data consist of DOE's annual appropriations, adjusted for any advanced
appropriations and rescissions. To assess the reliability of these data, we
interviewed DOE program managers and budget officials with oversight of each
of the technologies. We asked DOE officials a series of data reliability questions,
including questions covering data classification, particularly over time; program
changes that could impact data classification or budget accounts; custody and
maintenance of the data, including updates; quality control procedures; and
accuracy and completeness of the data. Where appropriate, we adjusted the data to
ensure consistency in reporting over time. We obtained historical documents,
program plans, and assessments from other entities to corroborate the data. We
determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.
In addition to DOE's R and D funding, we reviewed revenue losses from energy-
related tax expenditures for fiscal years 2000 through 2006 by reviewing tax
expenditure revenue loss estimates prepared by the Department of the Treasury
