It is an article of faith among planning advocates that the automobile is heavily subsidized and those subsidies include subsidies to the oil industry. What the innumerate can’t understand is that the automobile is so heavily used that what subsidies there are amount are tiny when measured per passenger mile.
As has been previously noted here, highway subsidies amount to less than half a penny per passenger mile. By comparison, transit subsidies are more than 61 cents per passenger mile.
But what about subsidies to the oil industry? A recent paper from the Energy Information Agency compares federal subsidies to all forms of energy. According to table 36 of this report (on physical page 128, numbered page 108), subsidies to oil and natural gas amount to 3 cents per million BTUs.
