There is a check written every hour in the United States. It is not signed by the President. It is not authorized by Congress. It does not appear in the federal budget. But it is paid, without exception, by the American people.
The amount is $74 million.
Every hour. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Fifty-two weeks a year.
The total comes to roughly $649 billion annually. For context, that number exceeds the entire military budget of the United States. It is a transfer of wealth so massively that it could fund universal healthcare, free college, or a total rebuilding of the nation’s infrastructure. Instead, it goes to a single industry: fossil fuels.
We are told that oil, gas, and coal are pillars of the “free market.” We are told they are independent titans of industry that drive the economy without government help. This is the foundational lie of American energy policy. The fossil fuel industry does not operate on the free market. It operates on a welfare system more lucrative than any social program in history. And the cost is buried in the places we least expect to look.
The $649 billion is not a stack of checks cut by the Treasury Department. If you looked at the federal budget, you would see only a fraction of it, roughly $20 billion in direct tax breaks and subsidies. That is the official lie. The real cost is hidden in what economists call “externalities.” It is the cost of doing business that the industry refuses to pay, and that the public is forced to absorb.
The first hidden cost is health. When a coal plant pumps sulfur dioxide into the air, or a refinery releases benzene, people get sick. They develop asthma. They get cancer. They have heart attacks. The industry does not pay for the hospital visits, the inhalers, the chemotherapy, or the funerals. You do.
This is not an abstract statistic. It is visible in the death rates of “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana. It is visible in the asthma epidemics in the Bronx and Detroit. A 2021 study estimated that air pollution from fossil fuels costs the American public roughly $100 billion a year in healthcare expenses. That is a subsidy. It is a transfer of profit to the industry and a cost to the citizen.
The second hidden cost is climate. When a barrel of oil is burned, it releases carbon. That carbon traps heat. That heat fuels hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods. The industry does not pay for the homes destroyed in Florida by stronger storms. It does not pay for the crops lost in Iowa by drought. It does not pay for the firefighting efforts in California. You do. The federal government, and by extension, the taxpayer, picks up the tab for climate disasters that are being fueled by the very product these companies sell. The cost of climate damages attributable to U.S. fossil fuel production is estimated at over $500 billion annually. That is a subsidy. It is a license to destroy the planet for profit, with the public footing the bill for the wreckage.
The third hidden cost is infrastructure. The U.S. military spends billions every year protecting oil shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf and securing pipelines in conflict zones. This is not “defense.” This is a security detail for Exxon and Chevron, paid for by the Pentagon. If the fossil fuel industry had to hire its own private navy to secure its supply chains, gasoline would cost $15 a gallon. Instead, the public pays for the protection, and the industry keeps the profit.
The industry’s defense is predictable. They argue that they pay billions in taxes, contributing their fair share to the Treasury. This is a distortion.
While the statutory corporate tax rate is 21%, the fossil fuel industry rarely pays the full rate. Through loopholes like the “intangible drilling costs” deduction and the “percentage depletion” allowance, they write off expenses that no other industry can touch. In multiple years, major oil companies have paid zero federal income tax, despite recording billions in profits. In 2022, while the five largest oil companies raked in over $200 billion in profits, they continued to lobby for the very tax breaks that reduced their burden to near zero. They are not paying for the privilege of operating in America. They are freeloading on the systems the rest of us fund.
The comparison to the Pentagon is the most damning. The United States spends roughly $800 billion a year on its military machine. We debate that number endlessly. We argue over every bomber and every base. Yet we blindly funnel a comparable amount, $649 billion, to an industry that is actively degrading the nation’s health, safety, and future. We are paying more to destroy the climate than we are to defend the country.
This is the definition of a rigged economy. It is not a market failure. It is a policy choice. The United States is the largest provider of fossil fuel subsidies in the G20. Other nations are beginning to unwind these distortions, taxing carbon and removing tax breaks for polluters. The U.S. is doubling down. Even after passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested in clean energy, the government continues to prop up the very industry causing the crisis.
This rigging extends to the energy market itself. The fossil fuel industry loves to argue that renewable energy is too expensive, that it cannot compete without subsidies. This is a lie of omission. If you removed the $649 billion in visible and invisible subsidies from oil and gas, renewable energy would already be cheaper in almost every market. The “free market” they worship is a fantasy. They are not competing. They are cheating.
This does not happen by accident. It is a purchase. The fossil fuel industry spends millions on lobbying and campaign contributions to keep these subsidies alive. For every dollar they spend on politics, they get back fifty in subsidies and tax breaks. It is the best investment in the world. They are not earning their profits. They are buying them.
The industry will argue that these are not “subsidies.” They will call them “externalities” or “market forces.” But if a chemical plant dumps toxic waste into a river and the town has to pay to clean it up, that is a subsidy. If a power plant burns coal and the state has to pay for the asthma epidemic, that is a subsidy. The industry has simply figured out how to write the check to itself and send the bill to you.
$74 million an hour. Every hour. Every day.
We are not subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. We are being extorted by it.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
