Coalition Seeks to Cut $6 Billion in State Projects

A coalition of environmental and taxpayer groups is lobbying to save $33 billion from federal programs that it claims waste money, hurt the environment and amount to “corporate welfare.”

The coalition, headed by the environmental organization Friends of the Earth and the conservative National Taxpayers Union Foundation, will lobby for spending cuts or changes in law that range from ending U.S. funding for a dam project in Nepal to increasing revenues from the sale of federal land containing valuable minerals.

Among the $6 billion in California targets are the expansion of Interstate 710 through South Pasadena, nuclear reactor research by a San Diego company, irrigation subsidies for farmers growing surplus crops, a proposed Sacramento-area dam and several Lawrence Livermore Laboratory research projects.

“This is uniting what we see in politics today--national anger about wasteful government spending and concern about the environment,” said Jill Lancelot of the National Taxpayers Union.

Many of the targeted projects have appeared on endangered lists before and survived. But this time they may come under closer scrutiny as the President and Congress seek more spending cuts.

Coalition leaders have received “lots of calls from congressional staff who say, ‘Give me something to kill. My boss wants something to kill,’ ” said Ralph De Gennaro, a Friends of the Earth leader and co-author of the “Green Scissors Report” released Tuesday.

Although California projects represent almost a fifth of the recommended cuts, “this is not a war on the West,” De Gennaro said. “It’s a war on waste.” California’s large share of cuts simply reflects the federal money flowing there, he added.

The coalition proposes cutting all federal dollars received by San Diego-based General Atomics for research and design of a gas-cooled nuclear reactor. The company received $12 million in federal funding this year for the project, which employs 50 people in San Diego.

The coalition criticizes the proposed reactor as unsafe, scientifically unsound and not worth a total cost that it estimates at $2.6 billion.

General Atomics Vice Chairman Linden Blue disputed those cost figures, arguing that the federal outlay would be $500 million. The reactor would be “meltdown proof” and less expensive to operate than other types of reactors and would decrease dependence on foreign oil, Blue said.

The coalition said the federal government could raise $1 billion in additional revenues by reforming mining laws to charge more for the use or sale of public lands containing minerals. Existing mining law allows companies to mine gold, silver and other minerals on federal land without paying royalties to the government, De Gennaro said.

California has four mines on public land with about $1.1 billion in minerals that may be “patented”--or sold--to private companies for a total of less than $4,000 under current mining law, according to the environmentalist California Public Interest Research Group.

The Interstate 710 extension near Pasadena should not be funded because of its cost and impact on neighborhoods, the coalition said. A proposed dam near Auburn is unnecessary and environmentally destructive, the report said.

The coalition also attacked two Lawrence Livermore Lab projects: a fusion research facility that it said will cost $1.8 billion and a project aimed at producing enriched uranium for civilian energy production.