Green Scissors 2011

Green Scissors 2011 identifies wasteful government subsidies that are damaging to the environment and could end up costing taxpayers more than $380 billion. Green Scissors 2011 builds on last year’s report by advancing cuts that could potentially save taxpayers $380 billion or more over five years. The report makes the case that the federal government can help protect our natural resources, reduce the growth of government spending, and make a significant dent in the national debt by eliminating harmful spending. The Green Scissors report finds cuts in energy, agriculture, transportation, and land and water projects. Targets include massive giveaways of publicly-owned resources such as timber, oil and natural gas and minerals, poorly conceived road projects and a bevy of questionable Army Corps of Engineers water projects. Friends of the Earth has been working on identifying and eliminating environmentally harmful spending with the Green Scissors report since 1995, and Taxpayers for Common Sense has been our partner for 15 years. Public Citizen joined the coalition in 2010, and The Heartland Institute joined the coalition for Green Scissors 2011, after endorsing the 2010 report. All four of our groups have different missions and different views about the role of government, but Green Scissors represents some key areas where we all can agree...more

A copy of the report is here.

Here's what they say about livestock grazing:

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
public land grazing program is highly subsidized
and benefits only two percent of the nation’s livestock
operators. According to the Government Accountability
Office in 2004, grazing programs cost taxpayers roughly
$136 million to operate but only earned $21 million.18
Below-cost grazing fees encourage overgrazing and,
along with other problematic features of the existing
federal program, have resulted in extensive and severe
environmental damage to public lands and riparian areas,
resulting in reduced ecologic resiliency and ability to
adapt to a warming western climate. Federal grazing fees
are lower than the fees charged by almost every state.
In fiscal year 2007, federal grazing fees fell to $1.35 per
acre, the lowest amount allowed by law. To put that in
perspective, the first uniform federal grazing fee that was
established in 1934 was set at $1.23 per acre. The equivalent,
in 2010 dollars, is $19.81 per acre. It is time for
taxpayers to be fairly compensated for allowing grazing
on federal lands.