Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

The US spent more subsidizing fossil fuels than on defense spending, according to a new report from the IMF which found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion. The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution. These subsidies are largely invisible to the public, and don’t appear in national budgets. Broken down to an individual level, fossil fuel subsidies cost every man, woman and child in the United States $2,028 in 2015. - Rolling Stone