Speaking of informed and educated; what exactly do you mean by billions of dollars of handouts? Are you referring to the royalty incentives? Because those are not handouts - those are the governments saying "Look, our base royalty rates are too high to make this project economic, so we'll lower them until the project is economic and then call it an incentive." Saying these are handouts is similar to the phone company telling you how much money you save on long distance compared to 30 years ago. If it wasn't for the "handout" the drilling wouldn't happen and the government take would be zero. 

Can you please point us to your simple Google search that will validate your statement? I'd like to have all the data as part of your informed and educated debate.