Our tax dollars shouldn't be propping up an industry that's contributing to the climate crisis. We're calling on Congress to end these subsidies — but we need your help. Tell your U.S. representative: End fossil fuel subsidies.
Every year, the federal government spends billions of taxpayer dollars on wasteful and environmentally harmful programs that are polluting our air and water and driving the climate crisis. Green Scissors is the definitive guide to polluter welfare in the federal budget.
The federal government is poised to make record investments in American infrastructure and the national debt continues to soar. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are all around us. Heat waves are ravaging the country, hurricanes are battering the Southeast and wildfires rage out of control across the West.
Green Scissors presents a solution to both our environmental and wasteful spending problems from an unlikely coalition of environmental, public interest, free market and taxpayer organizations. U.S. PIRG, Environment America, R Street Institute, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth have chosen 2021 to revive Green Scissors, a project that began in the early 1990s, because of the urgency of the problems we’re facing now.
The idea behind Green Scissors is simple. The federal government should stop spending billions of taxpayer dollars on wasteful and environmentally harmful programs. This spending adds to the deficit and fails to protect the public interest. The majority of the Green Scissor list represents handouts to special interests that prop up polluting industries. Cutting this spending will reduce pollution and free up money that can be spent on modern infrastructure investments, such as clean energy and transportation.
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For example, fossil fuel companies that drill on public lands or waters normally have to pay royalties for the oil and gas they extract. But the U.S. Department of the Interior can provide what is called “royalty relief,” where companies are granted exemptions
Green Scissors proposes more than 50 cuts that add up to nearly $296 billion in savings over ten years. They cover wasteful programs related to the categories of energy, water, agriculture, transportation and public lands. See how it's broken down by category:
Nearly thirty years ago, an unlikely alliance was formed when our groups launched the first Green Scissors project. Today, this work is as important as ever. We won’t be able to tackle climate change and preserve clean water and air for future Americans if we keep subsidizing polluters with taxpayer dollars.