In 2006, President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, surprised the nation by declaring that America was “addicted to oil.” Until that statement, Bush had pushed oil production, symbolized by the viral photo of him holding hands with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.
But suddenly Bush was saying that “by applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.” His pronouncement threw Washington “into one of its occasional paroxysms of confusion.”
Unfortunately, the addiction continued. America still imports some oil, but now it leads the world in oil and gas production. The energy policy of subsequent presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, has been “all of the above,” the politically expedient idea that we need all available energy resources.
However, no president has pushed fossil fuels more aggressively or at greater cost than President Trump. He has imposed an energy policy that denies the addiction’s real costs, ranging from lung cancers to deadly weather disasters. All the while, America’s future — in fact, the world’s — depends on replacing “all of the above” with the “best of the above.”
Many of the best options are market-ready today, and much less expensive than fossil fuels, especially when we compare their real costs and benefits to those of oil, natural gas and coal. America’s most secure and prosperous future will be powered principally by electricity generated by resources that are indigenous, limitless, ubiquitous, relatively nonpolluting and free for the taking. Even with markets biased in favor of fossil fuels, renewables are often cheaper today. And they can be deployed in months rather than years to meet the nation’s rapidly growing electric demand.
Instead, America’s fossil fuel addiction is sustained by inertia, the ability of the oil industry to buy elections, and the subversion of market forces. With the help of elected policymakers, markets ignore the actual costs of carbon-based fuels. Consumers pay only a fraction of those costs.
For example, the price of a gallon of gasoline does not include the costs of air pollution on public health or its impact on weather disasters. A few years ago, the Center for Investigative Reporting calculated that when carbon dioxide pollution is counted, gasoline costs about $15 per gallon.
The center estimated that a typical driver causes about 10,000 pounds of annual emissions. It would take a forest the size of California, Nevada and Arizona combined to mitigate all the pollution created by America’s gas-powered vehicles.
According to the World Economic Forum, air pollution from fossil fuels costs over $820 billion annually in the U.S., or about $2,500 per person per year in additional medical bills. Despite progress in reducing air pollution under the Clean Air Act of 1970, nearly half of Americans still live in places where emissions make breathing dangerous.
In March, the nonprofit Fractracker Alliance itemized the direct and indirect ways governments in the U.S. subsidize fossil fuels. The total is $760 billion annually in subsidies, tax breaks and unpriced externalities.
The International Monetary Fund found that nations provided $7 trillion in subsidies for fossil fuels during 2022, 60 percent of it attributed to global warming and local air pollution. In the U.S., direct and indirect subsidies totaled $757 billion that year, or $2,243 per person.
“These policies distort energy markets, hinder renewable energy growth, and cost taxpayers billions,” Fractracker points out. “(T)ax advantages shield oil and gas companies from real market risks, which means that unprofitable fossil fuel ventures—businesses that would otherwise fail in a competitive market—are kept afloat at the expense of the public.”
Due to climate change, the actual costs of fossil energy are increasing rapidly. The average number of weather disasters has grown from nine annually over the last 45 years to 23. Forty states have suffered 10 or more major weather disasters during the last 13 years. Three of every four Americans live at risk of floods, hurricanes, sea-level rise or wildfires.
The Obama administration attempted to correct energy market signals by calculating the “social costs of carbon.” President Barack Obama ordered agencies to use it to estimate the real costs of federal programs and policies. Trump is now trying to hide the actual costs by directing agencies to stop considering the social cost of carbon — just one of many actions he is taking to suppress America’s necessary transition to renewable energy, including the false energy emergency he has declared.
In the meantime, the American people are suffering from Trump’s refusal to recognize reality. We need energy security at least cost with clean domestic resources. We need it now to guide today’s investments in America’s energy systems.
Trump is doing profound damage in many ways, but none as irreversible, dangerous to life, or long-lasting as the nearly 5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide that America’s fossil fuel addiction dumps into the atmosphere each year. He has done all this in 118 days, but the actual costs will last thousands of years.
William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director and executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, which is not affiliated with the White House.
