HR4714-119

What This Bill Does

The End Polluter Welfare Act is a large anti-subsidy and environmental-restoration bill for fossil fuels. It defines fossil fuel as coal, petroleum, natural gas, or derivatives used for fuel, then removes federal financial advantages across leasing, agency funding, international finance, tax credits, deductions, depreciation, and permitting. On public lands and waters, it repeals royalty-relief authorities, bars royalty relief under Outer Continental Shelf leases, raises onshore coal and oil-and-gas lease royalty floors to 18.75 percent, and changes offshore oil and gas royalty language to 18.75 percent. It restricts federal and international finance by rescinding unobligated U.S. contributions to international financial institutions that support fossil-fuel production or transport, ending DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management authority except wind-down costs, blocking Loan Programs Office fossil-fuel, carbon-capture, and nonqualified hydrogen projects, blocking ARPA-E fossil-fuel projects, barring Rural Utility Service fossil-fuel loans, and prohibiting DFC, EXIM, USTDA, USAID, MCC, DOT, FRA, rail-facility, and port-project assistance that supports fossil fuels. It also removes CERCLA lender exclusions for certain financial-sector lenders tied to fossil-fuel collateral. The tax title terminates enhanced oil recovery, marginal-well, spudding, working-interest, oil-and-gas percentage depletion, and other fossil-fuel preferences, denies bonus depreciation for fossil-fuel property, repeals coal and hard-mineral percentage depletion, ends LIFO for oil, gas, and coal companies, modifies foreign tax credit and subpart F rules for oil and gas income, expands oil spill taxes to synthetic crude, increases the oil spill liability financing rate, denies deductions for Oil Pollution Act removal costs and damages, imposes a 13 percent Gulf of Mexico outer-continental-shelf crude oil and natural gas removal tax with royalty credits, repeals fossil-fuel publicly traded partnership treatment, amortizes tertiary injectant, mine development, mining exploration, and oil-and-gas intangible drilling costs over 84 months, raises the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund coal excise tax to $1.38 per ton for underground coal and $0.69 per ton for surface coal, ends refined-coal production-credit eligibility, treats foreign oil-related income as subpart F income, repeals the foreign oil and gas extraction income GILTI exclusion, eliminates petroleum-tax drawbacks, terminates the carbon oxide sequestration credit for post-enactment captures, and requires Treasury to publish taxpayer information for section 45Q claimants. Later provisions repeal NEPA BUILDER Act sections, roll back or amend One Big Beautiful Bill Act fossil-fuel incentives including metallurgical coal and hydrogen-related provisions, restore the EPA waste-emissions-charge rule by repealing Public Law 119-2, and direct Treasury with DOE to identify each remaining fossil-fuel production subsidy and recommend legislative elimination within one year.

Who Benefits and How

Federal taxpayers benefit if royalty relief, fossil-fuel tax preferences, loan guarantees, grants, and international finance subsidies are reduced or eliminated. Environmental justice communities benefit from restored environmental review, waste-emissions charge enforcement, higher oil-spill funding, and limits on fossil-fuel expansion support. Renewable energy developers benefit indirectly when fossil-fuel projects lose federal financing advantages and some nonqualified hydrogen projects are excluded. Black Lung Disability Trust Fund beneficiaries benefit from higher coal excise tax rates supporting the fund. Treasury and DOE oversight staff benefit from a mandate to inventory remaining fossil-fuel production subsidies for future elimination.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Oil and gas producers lose multiple tax credits, deductions, depletion allowances, royalty relief, LIFO treatment, publicly traded partnership treatment, and OCS tax advantages. Coal companies face higher Black Lung excise taxes, loss of percentage depletion, loss of refined-coal credit eligibility, and removal of metallurgical-coal incentives. Pipeline, refinery, port, rail, and fossil-fuel transport projects lose access to several federal financing or assistance channels. DOE, DFC, EXIM, USTDA, USAID, MCC, DOT, USDA, and international-finance officials must police fossil-fuel restrictions and wind down affected programs. Carbon capture developers and nonqualified hydrogen projects lose section 45Q or DOE financing support unless they meet the narrowed clean-hydrogen rules.

Key Provisions

• Repeals offshore and Energy Policy Act royalty-relief authorities and raises federal fossil-fuel royalty floors.
• Blocks DOE, ARPA-E, RUS, DFC, EXIM, USTDA, USAID, MCC, DOT, and international-finance support for fossil-fuel projects.
• Terminates or limits fossil-fuel tax credits, deductions, depreciation, depletion, LIFO, foreign-income, and publicly traded partnership preferences.
• Imposes a 13 percent Gulf of Mexico outer-continental-shelf crude oil and natural gas removal tax with royalty credits.
• Increases oil-spill and Black Lung excise taxes and denies deductions for Oil Pollution Act removal costs and damages.
• Repeals NEPA BUILDER Act sections, restores the EPA waste-emissions-charge rule, and directs Treasury and DOE to identify remaining fossil-fuel subsidies.