Federal subsidies to polluters are making your life worse

in ways you cannot see and would never imagine.

Earlier this week the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under directions from the White House, announced that when auditing or revising environmental regulations about soot from burning fossil fuels in electrical generation it will no longer count the economic cost of harm to human health. These regulations have been in place for decades, and estimates of the benefits to society have been reported to be 30 times the cost to companies complying with them.

Additional White House efforts are underway to expand the list of “not-counted” pollution from other sources which damage health. Why is this going on? Let’s follow the money.

During 2024, when America was the largest seller of oil and gas in the world, our oil and gas companies reported a profit of $84 billion, which was made that large in part by a subsidy from American federal taxpayers of $35 billion. Said another way, 41% of what these companies reported as their “profit” in 2024 is in fact an ongoing annual subsidy from American taxpayers to some of the most profitable companies of our economy!

Obsolete Industrial Policies

These subsidies started in 1916, when the oil and gas industry was just emerging and struggling. Subsidizing a new technology that would help everyone be able to move from riding horses to driving cars was a controversial new idea, but after some political struggle the law passed, creating a huge positive impact on our society.

Unfortunately, in part because this was the first law of its type, lawmakers made a mistake. The 1916 law did not include any expiration date for the subsidies, even after the industry might move out of the start-up phase and became wildly profitable. Understandably, you may feel angry when you learn that your taxes are subsidizing an already-very-profitable industry in which the affluent own stock, and that our national elected officials willingly or out of ignorance hurt the average taxpayers by not ending the subsidies.

Incentives to Pollute

The story gets worse. Globally, burning coal, oil and gas adds about 68% of all new greenhouse gasses globally every year. Already the largest producer in the world, America is making the global problem worse, because our government-subsidized output of climate-changing fuels has more than doubled in the past 15 years.

Microplastics In Your Body

Big oil and gas contribute to another equally severe environmental problem: about one-fifth of all oil and gas is used to make plastics, which break down in the environment to become invisible microplastics. All humans whose flesh and organs have been examined for microplastics are found to have them. Microplastics have been detected in brain tissue, body fat, sexual organs, umbilical cords of newborns, and in the first poop made by a newborn baby.

Studies have shown that the average American eats or drinks enough plastic to make a new credit card each week. Other than that which we flush down the toilet, the rest remains in our bodies.

On top of all the damage done by microplastics themselves, researchers have found that one-quarter of all plastics produced today also carry hazardous chemicals in them.

A Cycle We Can End

One of the reasons subsidized plastics are so widely used in our economy is that they are cheap – and one of the reasons they are cheap is because of the subsidies to the oil and gas industry.

There are many examples of how to make competitively priced biodegradable plastic already.  If we want to have America’s creative genius invent a biodegradable plastic that would cease to exist in our bodies over time, we must stop subsidizing the bad stuff and instead subsidize the new industry to begin making some good stuff.

And one last thing: in April of 2024 (before the election), Trump asked the oil and gas industry to give one billion dollars to his campaign. They did.

Why? Because if the current administration’s EPA allows them to continue down the road of hiding the well-known health and climate impact of oil and gas, those companies will not have to calculate and reveal the massive damage to you and your family that subsidized greenhouse gases and plastics is already causing.

Time to Act

This is absurd. The threats to our families are clear and documented. This is a moral and political problem, and it can be solved only when all of us come together to change the behavior of politicians who stand passively on the sidelines, hoping not to be noticed for doing nothing.

Subject to Climate

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