Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
3/22/13
The Senate will begin voting today on the first of hundreds of amendments to a Fiscal Year 2014 budget blueprint, many of which are aimed at putting lawmakers on record about controversial climate-related issues like carbon taxes and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Congress’ upper chamber took up Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) spending plan March 20. Senators quickly submitted hundreds of amendments—they can introduce an unlimited amount under Senate budget rules—lining up a so-called “vote-a-rama” beginning March 22. While the Senate is not required to vote on every amendment, reports indicated that voting could stretch through this weekend.
Some Senate Republicans introduced amendments aimed at stymieing efforts to price carbon or regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) sponsored an amendment that would essentially prevent any future votes on a carbon tax in the Senate. Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member David Vitter (R-La.) offered an amendment based on a bill he reintroduced at the beginning of this Congress that would ban the Obama Administration from regulating greenhouse gases until other big emitters like China, India and Russia enact similar limits. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) came forward with a rider that would prevent federal agencies from considering greenhouse gas emissions produced outside of the U.S. when examining the environmental impact of major energy projects like coal and liquid natural gas exports. He also introduced an amendment that would set aside $5 million in Environmental Protection Agency funding to require the agency to do economic modeling that consider the “ripple effects” of its regulations. While many of the more controversial amendments are not expected to muster enough support to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, the ones that do are not likely to have an immediate impact given that budget blueprints are considered non-binding measures.
Senate Passes CR
Before moving to consider Murray’s budget blueprint, the Senate passed an amended version of the six-month stop-gap spending bill cleared by the House earlier this month. The upper chamber voted 73-26 March 20 to pass the $984 billion measure, which would fund the federal government through Sept. 30. The Continuing Resolution (CR) would continue to fund the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D at its current FY 2012 appropriated levels minus the impacts of sequestration. While the measure maintains funding for most DOE programs on par with currently enacted levels, it does cut $44 million from the Department through the remainder of the fiscal year, sparing the Office of Fossil Energy but trimming funding from the Offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Nuclear Energy, Science and ARPA-E. The CR does, however, approve up to $2 billion for the “construction, acquisition or improvement of fossil-fueled electric generating plants (whether new or existing) that utilize carbon sequestration systems,” giving the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service the ability to grant loans to companies building electric generating capacity that incorporates CCS.
The upper chamber ultimately did not vote on a majority of the more than 100 amendments that were attached to the bill as of late last week. One of those riders, sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), would have increased the spending authority for DOE’s Fossil Energy R&D program by almost $100 million to $660 million by zeroing out State Department funding to the Global Environment Facility, an international organization that addresses global environment issues and sustainable development initiatives. Senate leaders also discarded an amendment sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) addressing a recently-released Government Accountability Office report that added climate to its high risk list. That amendment would have indicated that it is the “sense of the Senate” that federal agencies should take as many actions as possible to limit the government’s fiscal exposure to climate change.
The House quickly took up the Senate-passed version of the CR March 21, clearing the measure 318-109 before heading out of town for a two-week recess. The measure now awaits the President’s signature, which must occur before March 27, when the current stop-gap measure to keep the government open expires.
Appropriators Look Toward Longer-Term Budget Approach
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said now that FY 2013 funding is cemented, the upper chamber can focus on the tasks of “passing a budget, ending sequestration and getting back to regular order.” Her Republican counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), called the CR’s passage “an important step in breaking from crisis mode in Washington.” “Chairwoman Mikulski and I set out to prevent a government shutdown, provide flexibility for those implementing budget cuts, and produce a bill that both parties in both chambers can support. It is my hope that the tone we set in meeting these objectives for the current fiscal year will carry over to our work on subsequent appropriations bills,” he said in a statement. “We must continue to work together to replace a last minute, shotgun approach to reducing spending with a deliberate, targeted process.”
House Passes Ryan Plan
Meanwhile, across the Capitol complex this week, the House quickly voted March 21 to pass Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget blueprint on a largely party-line vote of 221-207. That plan passed without any major energy or environment-related amendments and aims to balance the budget over the next decade by cutting $4.6 trillion in government spending. The blueprint calls for energy independence via increased fossil fuel production on federal lands and fewer federal incentives for clean energy technologies. At the Department of Energy, it would direct most money to basic R&D and energy security, while paring back spending on applied and commercial R&D “best left to the private sector.”
