July 14, 2016

House passes EPA-Interior spending bill

The House on Thursday approved a $32.1 billion funding bill for the Department of Interior and Environmental Protection Agency that takes aim at the heart of President Obama's environmental agenda.

In its final vote before a seven-week summer break, the House approved the appropriations bill 231-196. Four Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while 15 Republicans voted against. It's the first time the lower chamber passed the spending bill for the agencies since 2009.

Already under a veto threat, the budget is especially harsh on the EPA and regulations on oil, natural gas and coal mining.

The bill as proposed would cut the EPA's budget by $164 million from last year and would keep staffing at the lowest level in about 30 years. Amendments proposed by House Republicans would reduce the funding another $100 million.

While Democrats rejected the bill en masse, Republicans cheered the provisions taking aim at the EPA. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., said the bill showed the House would "hold the line" against the EPA.

"We halt the harmful, job-killing rules [from] the EPA and the Office of Surface Mining," Jenkins said Tuesday when debate on the bill began. "Rules that would make electricity more expensive, rules like the stream buffer zone rule … that would expand the EPA's reach and impose unrealistic standards on our communities."

Democrats offered numerous amendments to try to fight off Republican attacks on Obama's regulatory agenda, but were mostly unsuccessful during Tuesday and Wednesday's House sessions.

More than 130 amendments were offered to the bill, with many of the ideas offered by Democrats shot down by the Republican majority.

Some Republican amendments that made it into the bill struck even further at the administration's regulatory agenda. The bill prevents using the Paris climate deal to impose more carbon emissions cuts on states, blocks new Arctic offshore drilling safety standards and prevents the EPA from implementing the Clean Power Plan until it goes through all judicial review.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif. and primary author of the bill, said stopping the regulations was part of the goal of the funding bill.

"Once again this year, there's a great deal of concern over the number of regulatory actions being pursued by the EPA in the absence of legislation and without clear congressional direction," he said. "For this reason, the bill includes a number of provisions to stop unnecessary and damaging regulatory overreach by the agency."

Those policy riders attached to a funding bill angered House Democrats.

"I must express my concern and disappointment with the 38 partisan riders in this bill," said Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn. "The number is outrageous and it is pandering to special interests at the expense of the public good."

 Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., added that the bill fails to protect public health and the country's natural resources.

"This legislation is supposed to provide critical funding for our most treasured natural resources, and it fails to live up to what the folks we represent demand," he said.

The Senate is considering its own version of the bill.

Congress left Washington Thursday for its seven-week summer break, extended this year because of the national political conventions.


By:  Kyle Feldscher
Source: Washington Examiner