Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Department of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act.  The bill provides $27.5 billion in funding for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, and other independent agencies.  The bill’s cost to taxpayers is 7 percent less than FY 2011 and 13 percent below the President’s request.

On June 6, 2011, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers stated, “Americans are sick to death of excessive government spending and regulation that is pushing us further and further away from economic recovery. This bill pinpoints and cuts extraneous, duplicative and unnecessary spending, prioritizes funding for programs with the most benefit to American families and businesses, and helps put a stop to free-wheeling government over-regulation.”  However, after combing through the bill in search of opportunities to cut wasteful spending, CAGW found room for additional savings.  In this Spending Cut Alert, CAGW compared the FY 2012 Financial Services bill to the 691 recommendations contained in its 2011 Prime Cuts database and found three significant spending cuts that, if enacted, would save taxpayers $29 million in FY 2012 and $157 million over five years.

“The Prime Cuts database gives the public, the President, and Congress a very straightforward list of wasteful, duplicative, and outdated programs drawn from more than two dozen credible sources,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “All that is missing is the political leadership to eliminate these boondoggles using the budget process and the veto pen.”

CAGW’s Prime Cuts database is a compendium of 691 waste-cutting recommendations that would save taxpayers $391.9 billion in the first year and $1.8 trillion over five years.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.