US House votes to slash EPA budget, support oil, gas output on public lands

The US House of Representatives' Republican majority is keeping up its fight against the Biden administration's climate and energy priorities.

The House voted 213-203 Nov. 3 to pass a fiscal year 2024 spending bill for the US Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department that would slash the EPA's budget by 39% and support oil and natural gas production in federal areas.

The bill "reduces unnecessary federal spending while prioritizing the critical needs and essential functions within these agencies," said Representative Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

But the bill faces certain rejection from the Democrat-majority Senate and White House.

"The majority of Americans support becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and they support prioritizing the development of renewable energy sources and preserving biodiversity for the benefit of future generations," Subcommittee Ranking Member Chellie Pingree, Democrat-Maine, said. "The austere and irresponsible cuts in this bill do not align with American values."

Deep funding cuts

The legislation would provide $6.17 billion to the EPA in fiscal year 2024, a $3.96 billion reduction from the prior-year enacted level and the lowest amount since fiscal year 1991. The bill would also rescind $7.8 billion in prior appropriations for the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, created by the Inflation Reduction Act to deploy clean energy and climate projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Republicans included several policy riders in the bill, including those that would repeal the Biden administration's Waters of the US rule and block the implementation of the EPA's carbon emissions rule for power plants proposed in May. The administration would also be unable to use the federal government's social cost of carbon estimate in cost-benefit analyses.

Interior's budget would slip to $14.3 billion under the measure, down by $677 million from fiscal year 2023.

The appropriations package would also require Interior to hold quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales and publish a 2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program that includes at least two auctions for acres in the Gulf of Mexico and two auctions for acres off the coast of Alaska each year. That stands in stark contrast to the Interior's proposed offshore oil and gas leasing plan that calls for a total of three auctions over that five-year period, all for acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Interior is expected to finalize that offshore program by the end of 2023.

House Republicans proposed to block funds for federal wind energy leasing activities in Idaho until the Government Accountability Office completes a report on the potential adverse effects of wind power development. The bill also prohibits leasing for offshore wind activities in Florida until certain conditions are met.

Turning to minerals, the proposal would block funding to enforce certain Bureau of Land Management withdrawals in Minnesota. The bill also reinstates certain mineral leases in the Superior National Forest.

Amendments

Ahead of House passage of the bill, the chamber adopted a wave of Republican amendments, including a measure to cut funding for the White House's Council on Environmental Quality to $1 million, a $2.75 million decline. The House also approved amendments to eliminate funding for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's Office of Renewable Energy Programs; block enforcement of a Biden EPA rule clarifying the Clean Water Act Section 401 certification process; and bar spending to carry out the Biden administration's phase 1 and 2 rules for the National Environmental Policy Act.

Turning to the oil and gas sectors, one amendment would prohibit Interior from raising oil and gas royalty rates for leased onshore acres to 16.67% from 12.5%, as mandated by the IRA, while another would restrain the department's ability to lessen the number of oil and gas leases issued.

Republicans have balked at the recent cancellation of oil and gas leases within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The House therefore adopted an amendment to bar the cancellation or suspension of oil and gas leases in ANWR and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and approved another amendment that would force BLM to pump the brakes on a proposed rule restricting oil and gas development in the NPR-A, the large federal enclave west of the producing oil fields on the Alaska North Slope.

Another BLM proposal on the chopping block under the House bill would be the agency's plan to close about 1.6 million acres of public lands in western Colorado to future oil and gas leasing in order to resolve litigation with environmentalists.

Veto threat

President Joe Biden vowed to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk, an unlikely scenario given resistance to the bill from the Senate.

Along with departing from a bipartisan budget agreement between Biden and Congress reached in June, the House's proposed EPA budget cuts "would severely limit the agency's ability to protect human health and the environment," the Office of Management and Budget said in an Oct. 30 statement of administration policy.

The White House also opposed the proposed 7% cut to Interior spending, saying the department "would be unable to adequately conserve and manage the nation's natural resources." And the policy riders for Interior would "slow the nation's progress in growing the clean energy economy," OMB added.