CAGW Issues Spending Cut Alert: House Energy & Water Appropriations

Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Energy & Water Development Appropriations Act. The $30.6 billion spending plan includes $24.7 billion for the Department of Energy, $4.8 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, and $934 million for the Bureau of Reclamation. The bill’s price tag is $1 billion below the amount appropriated in FY 2011 and $5.9 billion below the President’s budget request.

In this Spending Cut Alert, CAGW compared the FY 2012 Energy and Water bill to the 691 recommendations contained in its 2011 Prime Cuts database and found four significant spending cuts that, if enacted, would save taxpayers $621 million in FY 2012 and $3.9 billion 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Cuts database gives the public, the President, and Congress a very straightforward list of wasteful, duplicative, and outdated programs drawn from more than two dozen credible sources,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.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.