Perhaps those who make the counters are shills, but I've seen quite effective counters to this belief. 1) Energy is an industrial activity. So it gets industri

Perhaps those who make the counters are shills, but I've seen quite effective counters to this belief. 1) Energy is an industrial activity. So it gets industrial tax treatment. 2) Depletion allowances exist. These are at least mostly the same for any mining activity. Oil may be a bit different because the case law and policies surrounding it grew up differently than, say coal. There's no "third column" for subsidies. Those are it. This being said, the article makes a good case for negative environmental externalities not being part of the price of tar sands production. That would be a subsidy.