"Budget-slashers in Washington could get a jump-start toward their goal by eliminating environmentally harmful subsidies, an unusual coalition of conservative and liberal groups advised Wednesday."
"The coalition agreed in a report that many programs Congress has been protecting for years should be eliminated, including subsidies for coal, oil and gas, the ethanol tax credit, farm subsidies and nuclear and solar loan guarantees.
These and other proposals in the groups' 'Green Scissors' report would save $380 billion over five years. That's about a quarter of the $1.5 trillion Congress is required to cut over 10 years in the second round of debt reductions it agreed to earlier this month.
This is the 16th year of the Green Scissors report, but this time its total of recommended cuts is larger, and a sharply partisan Congress is under great pressure to find agreement on budget cuts. Also new is that one of the groups behind the report is the Heartland Institute, an anti-regulatory organization best known for its attacks on the work of the vast majority of the world's climate scientists."
Renee Schoof reports for McClatchy Newspapers August 24, 2011.
SEE ALSO:
"A Budget Plan That Treehuggers and Tea Partiers Can Love" (Mother Jones)
"'Green Scissors' Proposes Hundreds of Billions in Cuts to Federal Giveaways" (ENS)
"Oil, ARPA-E Top List of Subsidy Cuts Urged by Strange-Bedfellow Coalition" (Greenwire)
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