WASHINGTON, D.C. — June 26, 2012 — Congress could move a long way toward solving the nation’s twin problems of spiraling budget costs and environmental degradation simply by cutting hundreds of billions in environmentally harmful federal subsidies, according to a groundbreaking new report from an unusual left-right coalition.

Produced by the progressive environmental group Friends of the Earth, budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense and free-market think tank the R Street Institute, Green Scissors 2012 identifies wasteful and environmentally harmful programs that could cost taxpayers almost $700 billion over the next decade. That represents about 63 percent of the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts Congress will be required to implement beginning into 2013 under the “sequestration” process.

“It is perverse that we are staring down the barrel of budget cuts that will lead to dirtier drinking water as we reward corporations with tens of billions of dollars a year to poison the public,” said Benjamin Schreiber, tax analyst with Friends of the Earth. “We need to take the common sense solution of saving money by ending environmentally harmful spending.”

This year’s report proposes cuts to federal energy, agriculture, transportation, insurance and public land and water programs that either directly or indirectly place American land, air or water resources in jeopardy. The report is a the result of a collaborative process between the three groups, and only those programs that all three agreed were both wasteful and environmentally harmful were included in the list of recommendations.

“Green Scissors shows just how much harm and damage big, overbearing government can do to our common home in the natural environment,” R Street President Eli Lehrer said. “The report makes a crystal clear case as to how cutting government spending can produce real benefits for society.”

The proposed cuts include:

• $269.78 billion from energy programs, including $158.7 billion of fossil fuel subsidies

• $167.09 billion of agricultural subsidies, including $89.82 billion of federal crop insurance disaster aid

• $212.02 billion of transportation subsidies, including $125.80 billion of general revenue transfers to the Highway Trust Fund

• $101.8 billion of federal flood, crop and nuclear insurance subsidies

• $24.99 billion from wasteful or environmentally damaging public lands and water projects

“As lawmakers argue over what to do about the enormous deficit and looming automatic budget cuts, we have come together to present them with almost $700 billion in cuts,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Whether it’s getting rid of high-risk energy loan guarantees, reining in wasteful crop insurance or ending lucrative oil and gas tax breaks, eliminating wasteful spending that harms the environment just makes sense. Taxpayers want Congress to stop bickering and get cutting. Green Scissors shows them where to start.”

To download a copy of the report and to learn more about the Green Scissors coalition, visit http://greenscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GS2012-v7E.pdf

CONTACT:
Steve Ellis, (202) 546-8500 or Steve@taxpayer.net;
Benjamin Schreiber, (202) 222-0752 or BSchreiber@foe.org;
Eli Lehrer, (202) 615-0586 or elehrer@rstreet.org.

Read the report: Green Scissors 2012

Green Scissors 2011 builds on last year’s report by advancing cuts that could potentially save taxpayers $380 billion or more over five years. The report makes the case that the federal government can help protect our natural resources, reduce the growth of government spending, and make a significant dent in the national debt by eliminating harmful spending.

The Green Scissors report finds cuts in energy, agriculture, transportation, and land and water projects. Targets include massive giveaways of publicly-owned resources such as timber, oil and natural gas and minerals, poorly conceived road projects and a bevy of questionable Army Corps of Engineers water projects.

As highlighted in the report, the federal government could end the following programs and save the United States:

• $72,000,000,000 for general revenue transfers to the Highway Trust Fund,
• $30,000,000,000 for crop insurance, and
• $4, 820,000,000 for Oil and Gas Royalty relief.

Friends of the Earth has been working on identifying and eliminating environmentally harmful spending with the Green Scissors report since 1995, and Taxpayers for Common Sense has been our partner for 15 years. Public Citizen joined the coalition in 2010, and The Heartland Institute joined the coalition for Green Scissors 2011, after endorsing the 2010 report. All four of our groups have different missions and different views about the role of government, but Green Scissors represents some key areas where we all can agree.

Green_Scissors_2011 (pdf) | coalition press release | telenews conference audio

Left-right coalition identifies huge cuts in wasteful giveaways that harm the environment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — August 24, 2011 — Ending a third of a trillion dollars in environmentally harmful subsidies could go a long way toward solving our nation’s budget challenges, an unusual right-left coalition said today in a groundbreaking report.

The report — “Green Scissors 2011” — provides a roadmap to saving up to $380 billion over five years by curbing wasteful spending that harms the environment. That amounts to a full quarter of the savings the new congressional Super Committee has been charged with obtaining, in half the time. For full details on the report, go to http://www.greenscissors.com.

Green Scissors 2011 is being released by four organizations: progressive environmental group Friends of the Earth, deficit hawk Taxpayers for Common Sense, consumer watchdog Public Citizen and free-market think tank The Heartland Institute. (For reactions from current and former U.S. House members from both political parties, please see below list of statements.)

“While all four groups have different missions, histories, goals and ideas about the role of government,” the groups write in the report, “we all agree that we can begin to overcome our nation’s budgetary and environmental woes by tackling spending that is not only wasteful but environmentally harmful.”

The groups propose cutting many fossil fuel, nuclear and alternative energy subsidies. Other targets include massive giveaways of publicly owned timber, poorly conceived road projects and a bevy of questionable Army Corps of Engineers water projects.

“The Green Scissors report documents the breadth and depth of damage that government spending does to our environment,” said Heartland Institute Vice President Eli Lehrer. “Cutting government in the right places can make for a cleaner, healthier environment.”

“At a time when working families are expected to belt-tighten, so too must wasteful public investments in mature, polluting technologies,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “For too long lobbyists kept these undeserving programs and tax preferences for the fossil fuel and nuclear industry funded.”

“These common sense cuts represent the lowest of the low hanging budgetary fruit,” said Taxpayers for Common Sense President Ryan Alexander. “Lawmakers across the political spectrum should be scrambling to eliminate these examples of wasteful spending and unnecessary tax breaks that are squandering our precious tax dollars while the nation is staring into a chasm of debt.”

“We can go a long way toward solving our nation’s budget problems by cutting spending that harms the environment, and this report provides the Super Committee with a road map,” said Friends of the Earth climate and energy tax analyst Ben Schreiber. “At a time of great polarization, Super Committee members can and should find common ground by ending wasteful polluter giveaways.”

As the report notes: “To get our nation’s spending in check we will need to end wasteful programs and policies. They not only cost us up front, but also create additional financial liabilities down the road and threaten our nation’s fragile land, air and water. In addition, we need to ensure that we receive a fair return on government assets. From the more than a century old 1872 Mining Law that gives away precious metals — like gold and copper — on federal lands for free, to $53 billion in lost oil and gas revenues from royalty free leases in federal waters granted in the late 1990s, to the $6 billion per year ethanol tax credit, there are dozens of reforms that can return hundreds of bil¬lions to taxpayers while helping to address our nation’s top environmental priorities.”

“The 2011 Green Scissors Report is a reminder that it’s time for Congress to have a serious, rational discussion about cutting the budget,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). “With painful budget cuts already under discussion that will require American families to make sacrifices, it is only fair, for example, that we also stop the handouts to our richest oil companies.”

“Conservatives believe in the accountability of the marketplace,” said former Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.). “Subsidies cost us money, and they shield some participants from innovation. It’s that innovation that can grow our economy and clean up the air, water and land.”

“The Green Scissors report is full of recommendations that will help us be good stewards of the environment while also being good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.). “While we won’t all agree on every proposed cut, the report’s recommendations are a good place to start as we look for ways to put our nation on a more sustainable fiscal path.”

The Green Scissors Campaign strives to make environmental and fiscal responsibility a priority in Washington. For more than 16 years, Green Scissors has exposed subsidies and programs that both harm the environment and waste taxpayer dollars.

CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com; Kelly Trout, (202) 222-0722 or ktrout@foe.org; Steve Ellis, (202) 546-8500 ext. 126 or steve@taxpayer.net; Dorry Samuels, (202) 588-7742 or dsamuels@citizen.org; and Eli Lehrer, (202) 615-0586 or elehrer@heartland.org.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.greenscissors.com as of 5 p.m. EDT on August 24, 2011.

To download the pdf, click here: http://greenscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Green_Scissors_2011.pdf

The Green Scissors campaign is running advertisements in New Hampshire, asking that the candidates renounce their support for ethanol subsidies.

“With our country facing enormous budget deficits, it is more important than ever that Congress and President Obama take stock of our nation’s budget priorities and use taxpayer money wisely. One big opportunity is to stop federal subsidies that undermine our policy priorities. That way we spend less and government works better.”

Read the full op-ed in the Washington Times.

Reps. Blumenauer and Petri

Rep. Blumenauer, Steve from Taxpayers for Common Sense, Rep. Flake and Rep. Petri

Steve Ellis, Anna Aurillio, Ben Schreiber and Tyson Slocum

View more photos here.

November 19, 2010

Dear Senator,

We urge you to oppose the extension of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) at any level. Our recent Green Scissors 2010 report highlights the $6 billion a year this wasteful subsidy for corn ethanol will cost U.S. taxpayers. Despite the high price tag, VEETC will do nothing to drive green jobs or reduce oil dependence. Considering the fiscal challenges facing our country, Congress must scrutinize all subsidies and ensure that they provide the greatest level of economic benefit to taxpayers. VEETC clearly does not measure up.

Currently, conventional ethanol enjoys tax credits worth $0.45 per gallon blended into gasoline and is propped up with a mandate to use 12 billion gallons of ethanol in 2010. As detailed in the report, this year alone, VEETC will cost US taxpayers $6.6 billion dollars according to DOE projections of corn ethanol consumption. Even if VEETC was significantly reduced, it is still extraordinarily expensive. If the credit were to be reauthorized at a lower value, such as $0.36, the credit would still cost taxpayers $5.7 billion next year for corn ethanol subsidies alone. If reduced to $0.25 it would cost $3.9 billion in 2011 for corn ethanol. Overall, proposals to simply reduce VEETC are still extraordinarily costly, and still return virtually no benefit.

The Renewable Fuels Standard mandate, not VEETC, drives ethanol consumption. In a July 2010 report the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted that “the scheduled rise in mandated volumes would require the production of biofuels in amounts that are probably beyond what the market would produce even if the effects of the tax credits were included. To the extent that the mandates determine levels of production in the future, the biofuels tax credit would no longer be increasing production.” The Government Accountability Office agrees, concluding in a study released last summer: “the VEETC does not affect the level of ethanol consumption and is a duplicative policy tool for increasing ethanol consumption… removing the VEETC would not adversely affect the demand for corn for ethanol and the income of corn producers, which depend on the total level of ethanol consumption.”

Furthermore, VEETC’s ability to reduce oil consumption is questionable and costly: the Congressional Budget Office noted that it costs taxpayers between $1.78 and $4.00 for each
gallon of gasoline that conventional ethanol displaces. Coupled with the fact that VEETC is not actually driving ethanol consumption, this means it is also not reducing oil consumption.

More than 75 cents of every dollar we spend to support all forms of renewable energy go to the corn ethanol industry. Simply reducing the credit does not change the situation: whether it is a cost of $6 billion a year or $4 billion a year, VEETC is still a waste.

We urge you to read the Green Scissors report available at www.GreenScissors.com and take action to cut wasteful and environmentally harmful spending. One of the first and most important areas to start with is the VEETC. Please oppose efforts to extend the VEETC in any form and support efforts to let this wasteful tax credit expire at the end of 2010.

Sincerely,

Erich Pica
President, Friends of the Earth

Ryan Alexander
President, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Read the letter here.

November 19, 2010

Dear Representative,

We urge you to oppose the extension of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) at any level. Our recent Green Scissors 2010 report highlights the $6 billion a year this wasteful subsidy for corn ethanol will cost U.S. taxpayers. Despite the high price tag, VEETC will do nothing to drive green jobs or reduce oil dependence. Considering the fiscal challenges facing our country, Congress must scrutinize all subsidies and ensure that they provide the greatest level of economic benefit to taxpayers. VEETC clearly does not measure up.

Currently, conventional ethanol enjoys tax credits worth $0.45 per gallon blended into gasoline and is propped up with a mandate to use 12 billion gallons of ethanol in 2010. As detailed in the report, this year alone, VEETC will cost US taxpayers $6.6 billion dollars according to DOE projections of corn ethanol consumption. Even if VEETC was significantly reduced, it is still extraordinarily expensive. If the credit were to be reauthorized at a lower value, such as $0.36, the credit would still cost taxpayers $5.7 billion next year for corn ethanol subsidies alone. If reduced to $0.25 it would cost $3.9 billion in 2011 for corn ethanol. Overall, proposals to simply reduce VEETC are still extraordinarily costly, and still return virtually no benefit.

The Renewable Fuels Standard mandate, not VEETC, drives ethanol consumption. In a July 2010 report the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted that “the scheduled rise in mandated volumes would require the production of biofuels in amounts that are probably beyond what the market would produce even if the effects of the tax credits were included. To the extent that the mandates determine levels of production in the future, the biofuels tax credit would no longer be increasing production.” The Government Accountability Office agrees, concluding in a study released last summer: “the VEETC does not affect the level of ethanol consumption and is a duplicative policy tool for increasing ethanol consumption… removing the VEETC would not adversely affect the demand for corn for ethanol and the income of corn producers, which depend on the total level of ethanol consumption.”

Furthermore, VEETC’s ability to reduce oil consumption is questionable and costly: the Congressional Budget Office noted that it costs taxpayers between $1.78 and $4.00 for each gallon of gasoline that conventional ethanol displaces. Coupled with the fact that VEETC is not actually driving ethanol consumption, this means it is also not reducing oil consumption.

More than 75 cents of every dollar we spend to support all forms of renewable energy go to the corn ethanol industry. Simply reducing the credit does not change the situation: whether it is a
cost of $6 billion a year or $4 billion a year, VEETC is still a waste.

We urge you to read the Green Scissors report available at www.GreenScissors.com and take action to cut wasteful and environmentally harmful spending. One of the first and most
important areas to start with is the VEETC. Please oppose efforts to extend the VEETC in any form and support efforts to let this wasteful tax credit expire at the end of 2010.

Sincerely,
Erich Pica
President, Friends of the Earth

Ryan Alexander
President, Taxpayers for Common Sense

View letter here.