The US Is Giving Away $35 Billion a Year to Cook the Planet
Fossil-fuel producers should be taxed to defray the cost of climate change, not be given even larger subsidies.
Guess who gets subsidies?
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The price of eggs has more than doubled in the past eight years, which isn’t great, but at least you can eat eggs. The price of US government subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry has also more than doubled in that time, which is far, far less great. Welfare for an industry that makes billions of dollars in profits and pollutes the climate is worse than useless. It’s self-destructive.
The federal government gives oil, gas and coal producers at least $34.8 billion in subsidies each year, according to a new study by the research and advocacy nonprofit Oil Change International. In 2017, OCI estimated these gifts at $14.7 billion annually. This doubling in federal largesse has taken place under both Democratic and Republican political administrations, highlighting the difficulty of stopping its growth, much less reversing it.