CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

ALBANY— An environmental group has issued a report bashing the state's handling of the Environmental Protection Fund, claiming too much of the fund has been used to pay the state's bills and not to help the environment.

Created in 1993, the fund pays for improvements to parks, recycling projects and protecting farmland. But Gov. David Paterson and state lawmakers have taken $185 million from the fund over the past two years for non-environmental projects, according to the Environmental Advocates of New York report.

Nearly $500 million has been transferred from the fund since its inception, the report showed.

"During the past decade, New York's green piggy bank has been smashed to pieces," David Gahl, policy director for the group, said in a statement. "We're calling on Gov. Paterson to stop hacking away at environmental programs and stop including these sweeps in his budgets."

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