Why it matters
Government support for fossil-fuel production and consumption, comprising explicit price subsidies plus implicit subsidies (uncharged environmental and health externalities). Persistently high subsidies lower the relative cost of fossil energy and slow the clean-energy transition.
Latest related factInterior Secretary Burgum halts offshore wind leasing and expands offshore oil and gas
Driver weight over time, with the facts that moved it pinned at their dates.
Too few data points to measure movement over the full history; 5 documented facts press on this driver.
Strengthened 4 · Weakened 1
Welfare indicators this driver moves, strongest first. Each mini chart shares the timeline above.
Expanding offshore oil-and-gas leasing and streamlining fossil permitting channels federal support toward fossil-fuel expansion.
Directing DOE to revise rules in favor of fossil fuels and expedite their permitting is a policy intervention favoring fossil energy over renewables.
Legislatively forcing approval of a fossil-gas pipeline and curtailing judicial review functions as a state intervention favoring fossil infrastructure.
The 2022 surge is the defining recent data point for the fossil-fuel-subsidies driver, raising its intensity.
An authoritative finding that no new fossil supply is needed undercuts the economic and political case for continued fossil-fuel subsidies and expansion.
Documented May 2021 – Aug 2025
How Factrail grades evidenceThis driver’s slice of Factrail’s verified causal web — the people, facts, drivers and welfare indicators it connects to. Select any node to trace a path.
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