Washington, D.C. – Today Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Interior Appropriations Act.  The bill allocates $27.5 billion for the Department of Interior, Environment, and related agencies, a $2.1 billion reduction from the FY 2011 Continuing Resolution and $3.8 billion below the President’s request.  The bill contains $304 million for three earmarks that either were not requested by the President, represent a substantial increase over the budget request, and/or were only added by the House, thus meeting CAGW’s long-established earmark criteria.  These three earmarks represents less than one percent of the 127 earmarks in the FY 2011 bill.

CAGW President Tom Schatz stated: “The remnants of earmarks in this bill are a notable reduction from the 127 earmarks in last year’s bill, but any amount of earmarks is too many.”

The following are examples of pork that members of the House added to the Interior bill:

• $290,037,000 for Wildland Fire Management. In FY 2011, there were 14 separate earmarks for Wildland Fire Management.  In FY 2012, appropriators seem to have transitioned from multiple specific (and transparent) earmarks to one lump sum, generalized earmark.
• $13,980,000 for the National Wildlife Refuge System.  In Prime Cut s 2011, CAGW recommended the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened for leasing.  This would allow for private firms for natural gas and oil to lease portions of the Arctic National Wildlife refuge andraise $4 billion for the federal government.  The FY 2011 National Wildlife Refuge appropriation represents a conglomerate of 66 separate earmarks from the FY 2010 House Interior bill.
• $253,000 for the Compact of Free Association.

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