Green Scissors Budget Review

[Gawain Kripke <gkripke@foe.org>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, February 7, 1997

 Green Scissors Campaign Reviews Clinton Budget:

 Wasteful, Environmentally Destructive Programs Undermine Funding Moves

The Clinton Administration is trumpeting the spending increases for many
high-profile environmental programs contained in its new budget. But
behind the curtain, the new budget is actually laden with many of the
wasteful, environmentally destructive pork barrel programs covered in the
Green Scissors '97 report released this week by the Green Scissors
Campaign. The Campaign is an alliance of deficit hawks, environmentalists,
and grass-roots taxpayer advocates. 

In an interview yesterday, White House officials said the Administration
was making cuts on a number of specific Green Scissors '97 targets,
including forest road subsidies and wasteful programs at the Department of
Energy. But most target programs survive intact -- some with budget
increases, and some deliberately obscured by budgetary smoke-and-mirrors. 

"The new budget moves in the right direction on some issues," said
Courtney Cuff, of Friends of the Earth. "But it still contains enough
fatty polluter pork to give the nation a massive heart attack." 

 Budget Scorecard for Selected Green Scissors Targets:

The President requested $6 million for continued planning on the immense
Animas-LaPlata Water Project in Southwestern Colorado. The money cannot
be spent on actual construction, but since project planners have more
than $7.5 million in leftover funds, it's hard to justify this additional
requests.

On Subsidized Logging Roads in national forests, the White House cut the
government's construction budget by five percent. Additionally, the
budget zeroes out 'purchaser road credits,' under which timber companies
are reimbursed via enlarged timber allocations for building their own
roads in federal forests. Cutting these subsidies even slightly will
discourage economically marginal commercial logging. But there is still a
long way to go.

Government Mining Give-Aways are subject to a five percent royalty -- a
first step on the road to overturning the 1872 Mining Act, but less
than the eight percent levy approved by the House in 1993. The FY 1998
budget maintains the issuing new mining patents.

"Although this budget takes a step in the right direction, it takes two
steps back by continuing to fund unnecessary and wasteful programs" said
Jill Lancelot of Taxpayers for Common Sense. 

Administration officials pointed to increased spending for solar and
renewable energy, but ignored enormous subsidies by the Department of
Energy for nuclear, coal and petroleum energy. "DOE's budget shows that
they have no commitment to cutting polluter pork programs," said Anna
Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

Among the wasteful, environmentally damaging DOE programs targeted by
Green Scissors '97 but again funded in the White House budget:

 The President's request of $52.2 million for Petroleum R&D --
support for drillers and refiners that directly benefits major U.S. oil
producers -- is an increase of 13 percent over current funding.

 Spending for Coal R&D is only slightly curtailed, down to $100 million
from the current $103 million. This is despite a conclusion by the
Congressional Budget Office that "DOE spent hundreds of millions of
dollars on coal-powered technology without any indications of who was
interested in the product." 

 The separate Clean Coal Technology Program, which provides private
companies with government financing to develop cleaner burning methods,
is slated for a $153 million cut -- a good move.

 The Advanced Light Water Reactor program, which received a 1-year, $38
million extension for FY 1997, appears at first to have been zeroed out. 
But a new $39.8 million Nuclear Energy Security account seems to have
taken its place, continuing to subsidize the moribund commercial nuclear
power industry. 

 The budget also allocates $50 million for Pyroprocessing, the
reprocessing program for spent nuclear fuels that Congress has twice
voted to kill. President Clinton also asks for $225 million for Nuclear
Fusion, an 'atomic age' dinosaur program that has cost more than $10
billion over the last 40 years with virtually nothing to show for it. 

 The budget more than quadruples funding for the National Ignition
Facility to $876 million. An end-run around restrictions imposed by the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the $4.7 billion project is meant to
improve DOE's understanding of nuclear weapons and provide above-ground
simulation of blast effect. The facility has experienced numerous
accidents, and cost estimates are soaring.

 The Waste Isolation Pilot Project would receive $162 million. This is
a 13 percent cut from last year, but a foolish outlay for a project that
has yet to receive safety approval from the EPA.

For more information on scoring the President's budget against the
sensible cuts proposed in Green Scissors '97, contact: 

Courtney Cuff of Friends of the Earth, 202/783-7400 x207

Jill Lancelot of Taxpayers for Common Sense, 202/546-8500 x105

Anna Aurilio of U.S. PIRG, 202/546-9707

Jon Coifman, Environmental Media Services, (202) 483-0664