Our country isn’t broke, and budget deficits can be solved without harming the public and the environment. Instead of cutting essential services for the poor and middle class, we can find sensible ways to ensure adequate funding for government. We can end subsidies for polluting industries like billions handed out to Big Oil. We can make polluters pay by putting a price on pollution with mechanisms like a carbon tax.

This will protect the environment, cut the deficit, and equip our government to advance the public good.

Since the launch of our campaign, thousands of activists have shown support for a carbon tax and pressured the new super committee to end handouts to Big Oil and other polluting industries. More than 3,000 people downloaded our grassroots action kit. 

Friends of the Earth's Earth Budget Campaign seeks to:

• end subsidies for polluting industries;
• ensure adequate funding for government to protect public health and the environment;
• make polluters pay for the damage caused by their pollution;
• and encourage investment in clean alternatives.

Since 1993, with the publication of our Earth Budget report (the first comprehensive analysis of federal environmental spending), Friends of the Earth has worked to reform federal tax and budget priorities.

Our Green Scissors campaign has eliminated more than $26 billion in environmentally harmful federal spending and subsidies, while our longstanding work to transform public finance seeks to make our tax dollars work for the environment.