One of the ways the Administration hopes to find money to close the deficit, and at the same time increase the competitive position of renewable fuels, is to remove existing preferences and subsidies for fossil fuels. These are such things as depletion allowances, expensing of production costs, and treatment of coal tax payments as capital gains. The Administration's position on fossil fuels has been summarized many places, including the New York Times; its position on coal taxes can be found here.
This is a popular point among proponents of alternative energy sources. A study done last year purports to establish that subsidies for fossil fuels are greater than those for renewables. Of course, to be completely fair, to make an accurate comparison you'd have to eliminate taxes that are only imposed on fossil fuel, such as severance taxes, which are not assessed on renewables, and you'd want to see some comparison between the value of the subsidies in relation to the energy generated. Per unit of energy, I would guess the fossil fuel subsidies and preferences would be much lower than those for alternatives, but it would be interesting to see.
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