Federal government to investigate millions of dollars given to oil and gas companies under research and development scheme

In short: Oil and gas companies may have been accessing taxpayer-funded money for fracking through a research and development scheme. The federal government says it will investigate whether millions of dollars of public funds that have been handed to oil and gas companies through a scheme that explicitly excludes fossil fuel exploration are "valid and legal". Oil and gas company Empire Energy has received $28.8 million over the past three years under the Australian government's Research and Development Tax Incentive Scheme. "Empire's financial reports state that it accessed the scheme in relation to drilling and fracking gas exploration and appraisal wells in the Beetaloo, even though gas exploration is excluded from the R and D tax incentive scheme," Queensland Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne said. Rules of the Research and Development Tax Incentive Scheme Th scheme's guidelines state that money cannot be handed out for "prospecting, exploring or drilling for minerals or petroleum" for the purposes of one or more of the following: Discovering deposits Determining more precisely the location of deposits Determining the size or quality of deposits The Research and Development Scheme guidelines make it clear that money paid under the scheme cannot be used to subsidise "prospecting, exploring or drilling for minerals", and rules out pinpointing the location of gas deposits or determining the size or quality of deposits.