Green Scissors Report Released

[Michael Grynberg <grynberg@Citizen.ORG>]

  For Immediate Release February 15, 1996
  
  Contact:  Charles Miller or Diane Saenz
            Fenton Communications 202/745-0707
  
  TAXPAYER, ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS TARGET 
  47 FEDERAL PROGRAMS THAT WASTE $39 
  BILLION AND HARM THE ENVIRONMENT
  
  Green Scissors '96 Coalition Report Seeks to Sustain '95 Bipartisan Success;
  Government Subsidies Squander Money, Cause Environmental Havoc
  
  WASHINGTON -- Aiming to build on bipartisan successes of 1995 in slashing
  Federal programs and subsidies that waste billions while harming the
  environment, the Green Scissors campaign of taxpayer and environmental
  groups today released the Green Scissors '96 report. 
  
  The 47 programs included in the report would save taxpayers $39 billion if
  eliminated and include energy, public lands, water, agriculture, highway,
  foreign aid and insurance programs.   The report cites the total cost and
  environmental damage of each program and explains why it is a waste of
  taxpayer money.  Targets range in scope from international projects like the
  environmentally disastrous Three Gorges Dam in China to domestic programs
  like the Federal peanut subsidy and  Federally-funded projects in 17 states
  like an expensive -- and doomed -- beach restoration effort in New Jersey.  
  
  Led by Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the U.S. Public
  Interest Research Group, the Green Scissors campaign includes more than 20
  other groups like the Concord Coalition, American Lung Association and
  Sierra Club.  Today's report was also released by local groups in dozens of
  states, many of whom are fighting unwanted federal projects in their backyards.
  
  After the Green Scissors coalition released its widely heralded 1995 report,
  a bipartisan alliance in Congress successfully cut unneeded programs that
  will save taxpayers more than $5 billion.  Gone are sacred cows like the
  Department of Energy's Gas Turbine-Modular Helium Reactor project -- a
  nuclear research program that was rejected by the National Academy of
  Sciences three times.  Republican Representatives Scott Klug (R-WI) and Mark
  Foley (R-FL) united with Democrats Bill Luther (D-MN) and David Obey (D-WI)
  led the successful fight to kill the program and save taxpayers $2.6
  billion.  Also gone is the notorious Arun Dam in Nepal, a World Bank project
  that would have inundated an isolated mountain valley and doomed one of the
  last virgin forests in the Himalayas.
  
  "Despite some progress on the budget, the danger of a relapse into gridlock
  is very real," said Gawain Kripke, Director of the Appropriations Project at
  Friends of the Earth.  "These wasteful and environmentally damaging programs
  provide a perfect opportunity for both parties in Congress to work on real
  cuts and maintain momentum toward the larger goal of balancing the budget."
  
  "These are 47 real cuts that can be made right now.  Congress and the
  President should stop talking and start cutting, " said Ralph De Gennaro of
  Taxpayers for Common Sense.  "Green Scissors is a step in the right
  direction toward cutting waste and balancing the budget."
  
  "It's ridiculous that the federal government has been shut down over budget
  fights, yet we're giving away platinum to Chevron, research programs to
  General Electric and free advertising to the Pillsbury dough boy," said Anna
  Aurillo, Staff Scientist for U.S. PIRG.
  
  The report describes a timber sales program in Alaska's Tongass National
  Forest that costs taxpayers $100 million; a massive flood control tunnel in
  New Jersey that costs $1.5 billion and could be replaced by a much less
  expensive alternative; and a $900 million clean coal program that subsidizes
  the largest source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.  A few of the
  targeted programs in the 1996 report are holdovers from 1995, like the 1872
  Mining Law, which loses billions for taxpayer through handouts to huge
  mining interests.
  
  Founded in 1969, Friends of the Earth U.S. works to protect the environment
  and has affiliates in 52 countries.  Taxpayers for Common Sense was founded
  in 1995 and works to cut wasteful spending, subsidies and tax breaks through
  research and citizen education.  The U.S. Public Interest Research Group is
  the national lobbying office for the state PIRGs.  The state PIRGs are
  nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental and consumer watchdog groups active
  across the country.
  
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