Subsidizing failing clean coal could cost billions of taxpayer dollars over the next four decades, according to a report by a Washington, D.C.-based environmentalist group.
The report, titled “Coal Tax Subsidies: A Boon For Kemper,” argues that taxpayers will be on the hook for more than $4.5 billion if the lame duck Congress decides to dump more cash on Southern Company’s Kemper coal plant in De Kalb, Miss. The beleaguered project is already billions of dollars underwater and years behind schedule.
“This disaster is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule,” Lukas Ross, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said in a Tuesday press statement. “Kemper is a stark reminder of why carbon capture and sequestration is a waste of our tax dollars and a false solution to the climate crisis.”
Environmentalists are not alone in their condemnation of the subsidies.
“Squandering more tax dollars on carbon capture for coal plants like Kemper is just throwing good money after bad,” Autumn Hanna, senior program director of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which co-authored the report with Friends of the Earth, said in the press release.
Hanna added: “Extending or expanding these tax breaks makes no sense and will cost taxpayers dearly.”
