Taxpayer, Environment, Consumer Coalition Takes 'Green Scissors' to Federal Budget

The Green Scissors Campaign, a
diverse coalition of taxpayer, environmental and consumer groups, today
released Green Scissors 2010, a report highlighting government programs and
subsidies that are wasteful to taxpayers, harmful to the environment and bad
for consumers. Green Scissors 2010 targets four major areas for budget cuts:
energy, agriculture and biofuels, infrastructure, and public lands. It notes
several recent, substantial victories ending subsidies in the face of special
interests' undue influence in Washington.

"Staring down the
barrel of record budget deficits, it is well past time for lawmakers to tackle
our nation's fiscal challenges," said Steve Ellis, vice president
of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The billions of dollars of cuts detailed
in this report provide lawmakers a veritable menu of policy options that will
help our country's bottom line while also helping the environment."

"For far too long, the
federal government has incentivized practices that destroy our
environment," said Friends of the Earth climate and energy tax analyst
Ben Schreiber. "This is particularly true with energy. In the fight to
combat global warming, we cannot continue to subsidize the harmful practices
that have forced us into this dire predicament."

"Powerful corporations
and other special interests have too much influence in Washington," said
Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program. "We need
to reform a system that allows corporations to charge their pollution to taxpayers'
credit cards," Slocum added.

"With record deficits,
it is outrageous that both Congress and the administration continue to waste
money on programs that poison our air, foul our water and destroy pristine
public lands," said Environment America Washington office director, Anna
Aurilio. "It's time to save taxpayer dollars and the
environment," she concluded.

Friends of the Earth
launched the Green Scissors Campaign fifteen years ago to identify and
eliminate environmentally harmful, wasteful federal projects. Detailed sources
for the 2010 report can be provided by the primary authors: Autumn Hanna of
Taxpayers for Common Sense and Ben Schreiber of Friends of the Earth.

The report can be viewed at
https://www.foe.org/green-scissors.