Welcome back to Green Scissors

After a many-year hiatus, I'm happy to welcome back the Green Scissors report.  Green Scissors 2010 documents environmentally harmful subsidies to a variety of key sectors, including energy, agriculture, transport, and public lands.  The initiative is important in a number of respects. 

First, it combines the efforts of multiple NGOs (Friends the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Environment America, and Public Citizen) in a concentrated and effective way.  It is clear that subsidy reform is difficult even with this type of collaboration; without it, reform efforts don't stand a chance.  Second, the groups are all heavily focused on the legislative world.  Their approach emphasizes a format that legislative staff can clearly understand and act upon.  In the immensely complicated policy arena of government subsidies, this is no easy task.  Third, there is great power in making lists of subsidies to frame conversations on reform in an effective manner and push people to think about favored programs in new ways.

I'm hoping the 2010 report is the first of what will again become an annual assessment, and look forward to seeing the both the list and the policy details on the subsidies growing in future years.