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Green Watchdog 2002: 18 recommendations to save Californians money and save California's environment 5/16/2002 Green_Watchdog_2002.pdf

Executive Summary

As the new home of CALPIRG's environmental work, Environment California can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.

It is the Green Watchdog belief that environmental protection and strict fiscal accountability go hand-in-hand. In fact, pollution is most often the result of poor accountability—allowing corporations or individuals to take advantage of “free” public resources to the detriment of our health, pocketbooks, and general well being. Worse yet, when government not only allows environmental degradation to happen, but asks that the public subsidize it through various tax breaks and payments, we get hit twice: once in the pocketbook, and again in our quality of life.

This Green Watchdog report contains something for everyone to get mad about. It provides a menu of budget cuts and tax loophole closures for policy makers to consider adopting this year, as well as to encourage a longer term rethinking of how the budget impacts the environment. Twenty-six environmental, consumer, and taxpayer groups have reviewed state spending and are recommending eighteen cuts and policy changes that could save state taxpayers more than $28 billion over the next five years, while making a major contribution to improving our environment.

California’s budget, always a topic of heated debate, is in crisis this year due to the ongoing costs of the electricity crisis, losses in the state’s investment portfolio, and lower tax revenue down due to the slowing economy. Left with few alternatives, important programs are being cut across the board.

New budget scrutiny, however, could be the silver lining in this dark cloud, not just for taxpayers but for the environment as well.

Principles at Stake

The recommendations in this report are based on several principles that would help create a more environmentally responsible budget.

Stop Boondoggles
Tax dollars should not be spent on environmentally harmful and excessively expensive projects when cheaper alternatives exist.

No Pork Barrel Spending
Tax dollars should be spent for the public good, not the benefit of a few special interests, especially those that pollute.

Polluter Pays
Polluters, not current or future taxpayers, should pay to clean up pollution. Fees should cover the expenses of environmental regulation and mitigation so that the cost of cleaning up is treated as an ordinary cost of doing business.

Eliminate Counterproductive Policies
Government policies should work in conjunction towards a common goal, but sometimes it seems as if the government’s left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Government should not support policies which undermine its own environmentally positive policies.