‘Failure of Conscience’: Groups Urge Congress to Fund Social Well-Being, Not Fossil Fuel Industry
Diverse coalition launches calculator to measure cost of fossil fuel subsidies
A coalition of environmental and social justice groups has come together to declare collective disgust with the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars on unnecessary subsidies for the oil and gas industries when that same money could be used to improve the lives of millions if spent on social services, renewable energy investments, healthcare, and education.
The coalition includes Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, People for the American Way, and Oxfam America, among others. As part of its effort, the coalition has launched a Fossil Fuel Subsidies Tradeoff Calculator, a tool which breaks down both the government’s giveaways to the oil industry into smaller brackets, such as tax credits for manufacturers and fossil energy research programs, and the social programs that could benefit from those subsidies instead, like school lunches and veteran healthcare.
“Leaving the social safety net in tatters and keeping Big Oil on the dole is not just a failure to prioritize. It is a failure of conscience,” said Lukas Ross, climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, one of the organizations in the coalition. “In the face of record inequality, crumbling infrastructure, and looming climate disruption, it is time for Congress to think hard about the government spending we need and the corporate welfare we don’t.”
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