HOUSE SETS TIGHT ALLOCATIONS FOR APPROPS SUBCOMMITTEES

Tamar Hallerman and Todd Jacobson
GHG Monitor
5/24/13

House lawmakers unveiled the allocations for each appropriations subcommittee late last week, and funding is going to be tight in the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. The panel funds the Department of Energy’s applied energy programs, including the Office of Fossil Energy, but the $30.4 billion allocation for the subcommittee—known as the 302(b) allocation—is $2.9 billion below the panel’s pre-sequester level from a year ago, and $700 million below the post-sequester level. That is likely to force tough decisions on key energy RD&D work, which competes with nuclear weapons and nonproliferation activities, as well as water projects, for funding in the committee.

The proposed allocation for the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee would also be hard hit if the proposed funding levels are ultimately approved. The plan being floated by committee Republicans would provide $24.3 billion for the panel—which funds the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, U.S. Forest Service and other programs—18 percent below its pre-sequester FY 2013 proposal and almost 14 percent beneath its post-sequester amount. If ultimately approved, the funding cap could mean even deeper cuts for EPA’s budget, which has faced several consecutive years of cuts.

Diverging Priorities

Appropriations Committee Democrats were quick to criticize the proposed allocations since they object to the top-line discretionary funding level set by House Republicans of $967 billion. The Senate, controlled by Democrats, is working under a discretionary funding ceiling of $1.058 trillion for Fiscal Year 2014, the level agreed to by the President and Congressional Republicans during 2011 debt ceiling negotiations. Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said the House Appropriations Committee should set the allocations at a “more realistic level” to match the Senate’s, calling the proposed level “impracticable.” “The insufficiency of these allocations is crystal clear. For bills funding domestic services and investments, these allocations would require cuts of up to 20 percent from 2013 enacted levels,” Lowey said in a statement. “Many domestic priorities would be slashed to levels far below even sequestration levels.”

Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said the proposed subcommittee allocations were reflective of the sequester, signed into law in March. “We have no choice but to try and make the best of what we have,” he said in a statement. “It is my sincere hope that the House and Senate can come together on a sustainable budget compromise to replace sequestration and establish a responsible, single House and Senate top line discretionary budget number.”

The proposed allocations exhibit the growing rift between Republican and Obama Administration energy and environmental budget priorities as appropriators hammer out a Fiscal Year 2014 budget for federal agencies. In its budget request to Congress last month, the White House proposed more than $28 billion for the Department of Energy’s budget alone, an 8 percent increase over Fiscal Year 2012 levels, which, if granted, would take up the vast majority of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee’s proposed allocation. While Republicans have not yet released a dueling budget plan, a broad blueprint passed by the House earlier this spring calls on drastically reducing federal expenditures while focusing energy funding on core R&D efforts and paring back spending on applied and commercial energy R&D projects that Republicans think are better left to the private sector. An even more drastic chasm exists between the parties related to funding for the EPA, which continues to pursue a regulatory program that has many Republicans citing Administration overreach.