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The "Green Scissors" Report
Tonight at Town Hall, CityClub and the Green Scissors Campaign, among other groups, will release the Green Scissors Report, which details a list of potential federal budget cuts that will purportedly improve the environment while eliminating $380 billion in federal debt, or one-fifth of the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts the congressional "supercommittee" has been charged with identifying.
The report, a product of a left-right coalition including Friends of the Environment (left) and the Heartland Institute (right), notes, "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."
However, Grist's David Roberts is skeptical about some of the cuts the report proposes, which include not just wasteful energy subsidies but programs, like the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, that are actually subsidizing study into renewable energy sources, and tax credits for hybrid cars.
Read Roberts' skeptical take on the report here, and learn more at Town Hall (1119 8th Ave.) tonight at 7:00; free.
The report, a product of a left-right coalition including Friends of the Environment (left) and the Heartland Institute (right), notes, "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."
However, Grist's David Roberts is skeptical about some of the cuts the report proposes, which include not just wasteful energy subsidies but programs, like the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, that are actually subsidizing study into renewable energy sources, and tax credits for hybrid cars.
Read Roberts' skeptical take on the report here, and learn more at Town Hall (1119 8th Ave.) tonight at 7:00; free.
