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News Room > Press Releases

May 8, 2003

Read the Report

Contact:
Erich Pica, FoE (202)-783-7400 x229
Keith Ashdown, TCS (202) 546-8500 x110
Navin Nayak or Jennifer Mueller, U.S. PIRG, 202-546-9707

Taxpayer and Environmental Coalition Targets $58 Billion
In Wasteful, Environmentally Harmful Programs

[Washington, DC] –Sixty-eight federally funded programs that waste $58 billion and damage the environment should be eliminated from the federal budget, according to a report released today by Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

"Now is a critical time for federal and state budgets,” said Erich Pica, senior policy analyst at Friends of the Earth. “It is inconceivable that members of Congress and the administration are actually proposing more handouts to industries that drill and mine our public lands, pollute our air and contaminate our waters.”

The Green Scissors 2003 report highlights programs and projects that taxpayer, environmental and consumer organizations agree should be cut to stop wasteful spending that harms the environment. Over the last eight years, $26 billion in environmentally harmful spending programs targeted by the Green Scissors Campaign have been cut or eliminated from the federal budget.

The Green Scissors Campaign calls on Congress to protect the environment and taxpayers as it begins debating the federal budget in the coming weeks. “With the country facing the worst deficits in history, politicians need to dam the river of red ink,” said Aileen Roder, program director at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “By blocking the tracks of the special interest gravy train, we can get our fiscal ship in shape and preserve the environment at the same time.”

Among the polluting subsidies in the federal budget targeted by Green Scissors 2003 are:

• The failure of Congress to reauthorize the Superfund tax on polluters. One in four Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund site, but since the Superfund’s tax on potential polluters was allowed to expire, the pace of cleanups has dropped off dramatically, while polluting industries enjoy a $4 million-a-day tax break.
• A federal proposal to exempt oil and gas companies from paying royalties to extract public resources. Under Congress' new proposal, the wealthiest and dirtiest companies would be able to drill on public lands for free. States currently receive 50 percent of the fee that corporations pay for extracting oil and gas from federal lands. These royalties have generated more than $3.7 billion for states in the last five years alone and have been an important source of revenue for ailing state budgets.
• The Department of Energy's Fossil Fuel Research and Development programs. These programs are projected to cost taxpayers $1.7 billion over the next five years. As the major source of smog, soot and global warming pollution, the fossil fuel industry is a lethal threat to public health and the environment. The report calls for all subsidies to the coal, oil and gas industries to be cut, thereby protecting taxpayers and public health.
• The Forest Service's wasteful and destructive timber roads construction program. More than 380,000 miles of roads have been built in national forests to subsidize the timber industry. These roads harm water quality, fragment wildlife habitat, disrupt wildlife-migration routes, and destroy scenic beauty. The Forest Service has constructed so many roads that it now faces a $10 billion backlog in needed road maintenance. The Green Scissors Campaign calls for all funding for construction, planning, and design of new timber roads to be cut, saving taxpayers $170 million over five years. The report also calls on the Bush administration to enforce the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect 58.5 million acres of national forests.

The report includes several controversial programs included in the energy bill currently before the Senate. “The Senate energy bill is based on 19th century energy policy that will cost taxpayers at least twenty billion 21st century dollars and will harm public health well into the next century,” said U.S. PIRG Environmental Advocate Navin Nayak. “Senators should protect taxpayers and the environment by opposing this dangerous and expensive energy bill, and by opposing all environmentally harmful taxpayer handouts,” he concluded.

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U.S. PIRG is the national advocacy office for the state Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organizations.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a national, non-partisan budget watchdog organization.

Friends of the Earth is the U.S. voice of an influential, international network of grassroots groups in 70 countries.