HELENA — A diverse coalition of public interest groups not typically known for working together are calling on Montana Sen. Max Baucus and members of the congressional "supercommittee" to end federal subsidies that harm the environment.
Members of the bi-partisan Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction have until Nov. 23 to reach a deal on a deficit reduction package that trims $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit. If they fail to reach a deal, $1.5 trillion in mandatory cuts will kick-in.
In a conference call with the Tribune on Wednesday, representatives from the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, the libertarian think tank The Heartland Institute, and the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth, joined a Montana economist, a state legislator and a University of Montana student urged Baucus to implement the recommendations of the "Green Scissors" coalition.
The 2011 "Green Scissors Report" calls on Congress to slash more than $380 billion in U.S. government subsidies in the areas of energy, agriculture, transportation and land and water.
"Wasteful spending comes in many different forms. The most obvious form is direct spending on government programs, but other forms include tax expenditures and below-market giveaways of publicly owned resources like timber and minerals," said Autumn Hanna, senior program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense and one of the report's authors. "All areas of government waste must be addressed to tackle our nation's deficit."
Heartland Institute vice president Eli Lehrer noted that his organization doesn't typically see eye to eye with environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth. He said the Heartland Institute is typically aligned with the ideals espoused by tea party movement, but that identifying subsidies that harm the environment is also core to the organization's mission of advancing human liberty.
"One that I find particularly egregious are the wide-range of insurance-related subsidies," Lehrer said. "In all cases ... they harm the environment and waste taxpayer money while also displacing a productive, private insurance industry."
Lehrer said federal programs such as flood insurance, crop insurance, oil spill liability trust funds and Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act have cost taxpayers billions of dollars while encouraging individuals and companies to engage in environmentally destructive behavior.
"All of these subsidies are harmful to the environment, and all of them displace productive private activity," Lehrer said. "These are exactly the sort of things that conservatives should stand against, and among the many reasons why the Heartland Institute is proud to have joined the Green Scissors Coalition this year."
Ben Schreiber is a climate and energy tax analyst for Friends of the Earth and is also one of the report's co-authors. Schreiber said that FOE is more closely aligned with the ideals of the Occupy Wall Street movement than the tea party movement, but he said cutting wasteful subsidies for some of the world's richest corporations is a principle groups across the political spectrum can agree upon.
"This report provides the supercommittee with a road map," Schreiber said. "At a time of great polarization, supercommittee members can and should find common ground by ending wasteful polluter giveaways."
Tom Power is a research professor and professor emeritus at the University of Montana Department of Economics. Power said one taxation principle economists, pro-market advocates, environmentalists tend to agree on is that government should collect revenues it needs to provide socially productive public goods and services by taxing "economic bads" rather than "economic goods."
"Granting tax breaks to energy companies at a time of high energy company profits and a growing concern about the environmental costs, including global warming, associated with energy production and consumption violates this principle: we should not be using the tax code to encourage energy production that has broad social costs associated with it," Power said. "Instead we need to be encouraging energy efficiency or conservation, improving the overall productivity of our energy economy. Closing the energy tax loopholes identified in the Green Scissors report would do exactly that."
Baucus and other members of the so-called supercommittee have been tight-lipped about the closed door negotiations. However, a spokeswoman for Baucus said "everything is on the table," as long the proposal is good for Montana.
In April, Baucus announced that he planned to draft legislation that would end billions of dollars in subsidies for the five largest oil and gas companies that reported huge profits amid high gas prices. According to Baucus' office, the proposal could end up saving tens of billions of dollars, a portion of which would be invested in increasing production of cleaner and cheaper domestic fuel and providing incentives for buying fuel-efficient vehicles.
"As (Baucus) looks at this proposal and others, he does it through the lens of 'what's right for Montana,'" said Baucus spokeswoman Kate Downen. "I think it's fair to say he's considering this plan, and others, through that lens."
'Green Scissors' coalition wants federal subsidies to end (Great Falls Tribune)
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