Study argues removing oil subsidies would barely affect global oil price

Getting rid of the federal government’s energy subsidies would have a negligible impact on global oil production and the cost of oil, according a report released Monday.

The Council on Foreign Relations released a report by Gilbert Metcalf, an economic professor at Tufts University, showing that removing the $4 billion in subsidies the U.S. government gives to oil companies every year would increase the global price of crude oil by 1 percent. Domestic oil production would drop by 5 percent and global oil production would drop by less than 1 percent, Metcalf reports.