Overnight Energy: House begins moving spending bills

by Timothy Cama and Devin Henry - 07/12/17 5:54 PM ET

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT SPENDING DAY: House appropriators began moving two spending bills Wednesday covering the Departments of Energy and Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The full committee took a voice vote to move forward the energy and water appropriations bill, which would dole out $37.6 billion for the Department of Energy and the Army Corps.

The legislation for fiscal 2018 would reduce funding for the programs in its jurisdiction by $203 million compared with 2017 on an annualized basis.

But the bill is $3.2 billion above the drastic cuts that President Trump had sought as part of his effort to shift $54 billion from nondefense programs to defense ones.

{mosads}”Increases over last year are targeted to those areas where they are most needed to drive our nation’s defense and to support our nation’s infrastructure,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the subcommittee responsible for the programs.

Democrats criticized the bill primarily for its deep cuts to Energy Department programs such as the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy — which would be cut by about half — and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which would be eliminated.

“I strongly disapprove of the choice to shun the energy accounts that will invent our future, most notably the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the top Democrat on the subcommittee responsible for the bill.

“Technology is reality, and it’s changing our nation and our world,” she said. “And we must lead, or choose to be left behind as new energy horizons are invented elsewhere.”

Amid bipartisan support for those programs, Simpson stood up strongly for ARPA-E and hinted that the funding might be restored later in the process, such as when lawmakers negotiate with the Senate on a final funding bill.

“The department should not take actions to shut down ARPA-E until Congress directs it to by law,” Simpson warned. “We’ll see how this turns out by the time we get through the floor and to final consideration on conference with the Senate … until then, they should keep ARPA-E open and going.”

A subcommittee, meanwhile, approved the chamber’s $31.4 billion spending bill for Interior, EPA and other programs.

The bill would cut the EPA’s budget by $528 million, or 6.5 percent, next year, a move that would send the agency’s funding to 2008 levels, but far smaller than the $2.6 billion cut President Trump had sought.

Lawmakers also cut spending for the Interior Department and programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey. None of the cuts were close to the levels Trump envisioned in his budget proposal.

The full appropriations committee has yet to schedule a markup on the measure.

Read more about the energy bill here, and the Interior and EPA bill here.

GREENS SUE EPA OVER OZONE: Environmental and health groups launched a legal challenge Wednesday against the Trump administration’s attempt to delay enforcement of the Obama administration’s ozone rule.

The groups, led by Earthjustice, said that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt acted illegally when he decided last month to delay by one year the implementation of the Obama administration’s regulation.

“EPA’s delay flouts the rule of law,” Seth Johnson, an Earthjustice attorney who is representing the coalition, said in a statement.

“It’s illegal and wrong,” he said. “It forces the most vulnerable people, like children, people with asthma and the elderly, to continue to suffer from dangerous ozone pollution. The EPA is wrong to put its polluter friends’ profits before people’s health.”

In his previous job as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt was one of the lead litigants suing to stop the ozone rule. He is in the process of deciding whether to try to change the rule or repeal it.

Pruitt’s delay last month relied on a provision in the Clean Air Act that allows for such delays if the EPA has insufficient information to decide which areas in the country are in compliance with the new standard.

The green and health groups suing Wednesday said the EPA has all of the information it needs, since states submitted that data last year.

“EPA’s Designations Delay is devoid of any showing that the copious information already before the agency is somehow ‘insufficient,’ ” the groups wrote in their lawsuit. “Indeed, [the] EPA did not even attempt such a showing.”