OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House GOP’s EPA rider faces uphill Senate battle

By Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman - 02/17/11 09:39 PM ET

State of Play: Friday’s likely House passage of a spending bill that blocks EPA’s initial climate rules means that political battle lines are already forming across the Capitol.

Several key Senate Democrats made it clear Thursday that they intend to thwart provisions that restrict EPA when they take up a fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution (CR).

The House GOP spending bill, which would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, would cut spending $61 billion below current levels.

The bill includes a rider that would eliminate funding for EPA regulation of stationary sources – such as power plants and refineries – until the end of September.  

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), chair of the Democratic Policy Committee and a top strategist for his caucus, said Senate Democrats hope to move a CR without proposals like the one to block EPA’s climate rules.

  “One of the things we’re pretty clear on is we want a clean CR,” he said when asked about Republican proposals to block funding for EPA climate rules. “All the legislating they’re doing on the CR shows they’re not really serious. There are 400 legislative items that have nothing to do with spending that have been added to the CR.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) echoed Schumer’s comments. “We’ve got a budget crisis. If people want to change abortion law, if they want to change the Clean Air Act, if they want to change regulations that have to do with the rest of our life, that doesn’t belong on a budget bill,” she said. “Those should be separate.”

  A top member of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), also said she would not support such a rider.  

Even Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who has supported proposals to limit EPA’s climate authority in the past, said she doesn’t think lawmakers should use the continuing resolution to target the agency.

  “I would support some of the policies, but not on this,” Landrieu said. “I think it should be as clean a CR as possible.”  

But several centrist Democrats have joined Republicans in supporting measures to block or suspend EPA’s authority, indicating potential buy-in for efforts to use the CR as a vehicle.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), an ardent opponent of EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, said he may back such a rider on the continuing resolution.   Asked by E2 if he’d support proposals limiting EPA’s authority if they surface in the CR, he said, “Any way it comes over is fine with me.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) hopes to delay EPA stationary source rules by two years, and indeed had hoped to attach the proposal to a spending bill last year. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday that he’d support the rider on the CR.   “It’s going to be very hard for me not to vote to preempt the EPA because I believe in that,” he said.  

But Graham said it’s important for lawmakers to move energy legislation rather than only blocking EPA. He touted the notion of a “clean energy standard” that would expand power generation from low-carbon sources like nuclear, natural gas and renewables.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said earlier this week that he hadn’t yet tallied the votes on the EPA matter.

NEWS BITES:

Landrieu calls for peer review of Feinberg's Gulf recovery research

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) called Thursday for a scientific peer review of the research upon which oil spill compensation is doled out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kenneth Feinberg, who administers BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund, uses a methodology for distributing money to victims that's based in part on scientific research on when the Gulf coast will recover.

Landrieu, in a letter to Feinberg Thursday, called for a peer review of that research.

“Perhaps the single biggest challenge you face is providing a credible and reliable estimate of how long it will take for the Gulf and its dependent industries to return to normal,” Landrieu said in the letter. “Ecosystem recovery doesn’t necessarily result in simultaneous market recovery, because consumer perceptions and demand may take longer than the marine environment to rebound."

Hollywood comes to Washington to blast ‘fracking’

Actor Mark Ruffalo and Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox called on lawmakers to regulate a natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” raising concerns about effects on drinking water and the environment.

Fox, whose film “Gasland” is up for an Academy Award, and Ruffalo were joined by Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Rush Holt (D-N.J.), who are reintroducing a bill to impose stricter standards on the practice.

House Republican calls CR cuts viable in Senate

A conservative House Republican believes the conventional wisdom that the big House CR spending cuts and policy riders will collapse in the Senate is wrong.

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) believes the public wants steep cuts, and that the Senate will take notice – especially members facing reelection.

“The Senate is going to listen closely to what they [the public] are saying right now,” Pearce told E2 in the Capitol. “Americans are furious over the amount of money we are spending, and they appreciate what we are doing, but I think they think the cuts are trivial compared to the deficits,” Pearce added.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

On this balmy Thursday, E2 told you about an International Energy Agency report that says China’s state-owned oil companies “have a high degree of independence;” we reported that the House slashed a key greenhouse gas program by $8.4 million; and we outlined the latest League of Conservation Voters environmental rankings for lawmakers.

Then we reported that the major oil companies are ready to launch their oil spill containment system; we also reported on a new oil spill commission report that said BP was aware of problems with its contractors; and we told you about an effort by a key House Republican to target DOE’s stimulus spending.

We also reported on a federal judge’s ruling the Interior Department has 30 days to decide whether to issue five deepwater drilling permits and we told you that Republicans approved an amendment to block funding for Obama’s policy 'czars.'