Do we have numbers on how much more it costs to produce? Do those numbers over lap with the costs that all the people in my area spend on cancer treatment because their risk of lung cancer is 15% higher then the rest of the country due to all the coal that WAS (not still) burnt in the area?
I do not know the situation in your state, but there have been ZERO issues in my state and the surrounding state with extracting natural gas. So much so, that the corporations that owned the 3 coal plants within a few hours of my home made a business decision (before the current administration was even an option) to either close them down or convert them to natural gas. The infrastructure is not all still there. There are hundreds of miles of oil pipelines all over the country that are due for repair or replace but companies are fighting over who should pay for it because its not profitable for them (read about the lines that run under the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan).
I am with you on not wanting to buy anything really from China, especially anything related to this topic. What a great way for America to start getting back to manufacturing, which is one of the reasons those subsidies are used. They are the same subsidies that coal and oil companies have received for years. The reasons China is the primary provider of these materials is because they saw how the markets were going to go and made a good economical decision. Now, we are behind.
Also, if you were to look at the trends on the increased use of alternatives, including cleaner natural gas, they were trending up fast long before the current subsidies were put in place. That is because there is actually a market for these options in our country.