CONTINUING RESOLUTION: Land conservation money survives, but some EPA water funds cut (02/17/2011)

The House last night narrowly defeated a GOP bid to strip $35 million in Land and Water Conservation Fund money from its measure to keep the government funded until October but approved another Republican plan to strip $10 million in U.S. EPA funding that was slated for Tijuana, Mexico.

Two other EPA-related amendments -- one to strike $64 million from the agency's science and technology budget and another to shift $50 million from the agency to restore wetlands conservation cuts -- fell short on the floor during debate on the House's continuing resolution (CR), which would cut $60 billion in federal spending for the final seven months of the fiscal year.

The $35 million in land conservation cuts proposed by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) lost on a 213-216 vote, but the CR already deals a serious blow to the program, which empowers federal agencies to acquire land for preservation and got a plug from President Obama yesterday afternoon (E&ENews PM, Feb. 16).

Rep. Tom Reed's (R-N.Y.) amendment that would excise $10 million in EPA funding set for local assistance to Tijuana, where wastewater often affects nearby San Diego, passed on a 228-203 vote.

The two failed EPA amendments were proposed by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), whose attempt to slice funding from the agency's science budget was defeated, 199-230, and by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), the chairman of the House Appropriations subpanel in charge of Interior and EPA. Moran's bid to preserve wetlands conservation funding that was zeroed out in the CR fell short, 73-352.

At publication time, the House remained in the thick of debate on a flurry of proposed amendments to its CR. A free-form game plan that GOP leaders once hoped to conclude today with a final vote on the government funding measure could yet stretch into the weeklong recess set to begin this weekend, thanks to the furious volley of changes being offered to the must-pass measure.

"When the House finishes its business for the week will depend on how many of the 400 plus remaining amendments are offered, how long members choose to speak on those amendments, and which amendments receive recorded roll call votes," Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) office wrote in a memo circulated yesterday.

The House could vote today on a number of amendments related to the proposed seven-month funding prohibition for U.S. EPA's greenhouse gas emissions regulations and passed another cut to the agency's greenhouse gas funding yesterday (see related story).

The House CR's expected passage remains the first step in a lengthy two-track clash over funding for top Obama administration priorities, including land conservation at the Interior Department, renewables and innovation investments at the Energy Department and the EPA emissions rules.

Senate Democratic leaders have lambasted the House CR as a draconian slashing of government spending that would lead to job losses and imperil environmental safeguards. Their already keen pushback is raising the specter of a government shutdown as both parties remain miles apart on their fiscal agendas for the current fiscal year -- let alone 2012, the second track of the funding debate that began playing out with Monday's release of the White House budget request (Greenwire, Feb. 14).

"[W]hat they're doing is they're cutting with a meat ax," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday of the GOP plan.

Yet Cantor spoke for many of his fellow Republicans yesterday in touting the CR as a symbol of his party's commitment to trimming the trillion-dollar federal deficit. Describing the stopgap spending bill as "the single largest spending cut in modern history," Cantor added in a statement that the House's coming 2012 budget would strike an identical note: "Republicans have made clear that our budget will take the serious steps needed to start getting our fiscal house in order and get people back to work."

Meanwhile, Democrats in the lower chamber could do little but lambaste government spending cuts that they lack the votes to unravel. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took specific aim at the CR's EPA cuts and environmental policy riders in a statement, warning that the GOP bill "could jeopardize the quality of drinking water for millions of Americans and may leave millions of acres of wetlands and countless streams and rivers vulnerable to pollution without Clean Water Act protections."