To hear some US politicians tell the story, “Big Oil” soaks up much of the national wealth through “subsidies.” In a period of wildly elevated oil and gas prices and consequently high profits of major oil companies, the story sounds scandalous indeed. This scandal, though, doesn’t bear up to facts.Oil companies in the US do receive federal benefits that qualify as subsidies. But they’re not as large as they’re reputed to be. Most such help goes to small producers, not the integrated companies connoted by the expression “Big Oil.” And oil subsidies, as a new analysis by the Energy Information Administration makes clear, are smaller than...