A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday approved the fiscal 2017 spending bill funding the Environmental Protection Agency, though not without a modicum of dissent.
In line with the request from Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the Senate Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee offered no amendments to the legislation during a 30-minute markup. That will be left to the full Appropriations Committee when it takes up the Interior Appropriations Bill on Thursday.
The bill itself will not be made public until after the Thursday session, a spokeswoman for Murkowski said Tuesday morning.
The subcommittee’s legislation provides just over $32 billion largely spread across the EPA and the Interior Department and its various sub-agencies, the senator noted in remarks during the markup.
“I think we took a common-sense approach to the EPA’s budget and focused resources on programs that do concrete things to improve the quality of the environment for the public,” Murkowski said. That included providing an additional $157 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, in the wake of the lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Mich.
However, “on the regulatory side of the EPA budget, this bill makes cuts in areas where the EPA has overstepped its bounds,” Murkowski said. “Several program areas that have issued controversial rules that are currently blocked in court are reduced, because I believe it’s more important to provide resources to programs that yield tangible results in improving the environment instead of funding more lawyers and bureaucrats to draft rules of questionable legality and dubious environmental benefit.”
While she didn’t call it out by name, Murkowski was clearly referring to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, which is under a Supreme Court stay while it faces a massive legal challenge from 27 states and scores of trade groups and other organizations. Republicans charge that the plan represents an economy-damaging overreach of the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.
While he offered no objection Tuesday to moving the bill along, subcommittee Ranking Member Tom Udall (D-N.M.) made clear he opposes it as currently written due to what he called “poison pill” riders that would undermine environmental laws including the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Superfund program. Udall also expressed worry about “deep cuts” to programs addressing climate change and enforcement of environmental laws, among other areas.
“Democrats have been clear, the White House has been clear, we are not prepared to gut environmental laws as the price of getting spending bills passed,” he said.
The Obama administration is seeking $8.267 billion for the EPA for fiscal 2017, of which $235 million would support the Obama administration’s climate agenda, including $50.5 million earmarked for Clean Power Plan state action plan development.
The House $32.1 billion fiscal 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill would provide $7.98 billion for the EPA, $291 million below the president’s proposal and $164 million under the current budget. Agency regulatory spending would be slashed by 21 percent, or $187 million, below the White House request and $43 million, of 6 percent, below current spending.
Language in the House bill would prohibit the EPA from enacting new greenhouse gas rules for new and operating power plants, and would specifically strip out all funding for the New Source Performance Standards, which would effectively mandate the use of carbon capture and sequestration on all new-build coal-fired power plants under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act.
The House Appropriations Committee will take up the lower chamber’s Interior bill at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The Senate will then jump back into action with its Appropriations Committee markup at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
The White House has not yet issued formal veto threats against either bill, but has said in the past that it will not accept any legislation that overturns the Clean Power Plan.
