EPA Funding Cut by 16% in Budget Deal

One of the issues that threatened to derail the budget process earlier this month was the contentious series of policy-based amendments or "riders." Twenty-eight of these riders would have effectively restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce regulations and administer programs. One of the riders would have prohibited the agency from regulating greenhouse gases. While none of these riders made it into the actual budget, the agency did see a significant decrease in its funding—a 16 percent drop of $1.6 billion.

And the battle to defund the EPA is not yet over. The agency's power is being challenged by two bills introduced in the House of Representatives.

The first of these is the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. This bill seeks to repeal the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. This bill has been passed by the House and is currently under consideration by the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. While the bill has a good chance of passing a vote on the floor of the Senate, the questions are these: will the bill make its way out of committee and onto the full floor for a vote, and if so, will the President will sign the bill if it passes in the Senate?

The second threat to the EPA’s regulatory power is the Comprehensive Assessment of Regulations on the Economy Act, which was introduced into the House on March 17. This bill would establish a committee—led by the Dept. of Commerce—to conduct an economic analysis of the regulatory rules administered by the EPA. Rules that would be examined include MACT and the tailoring rule. House Republicans would like to bring the bill to the floor for a vote this spring. It will face the same hurdles in the Senate as the greenhouse gas bill. Some reports about the FY2011 budget deal, however, suggest that the President and Senate Democrats agreed to undertake this review as part of the compromise to remove the EPA riders from the budget bill.

Two additional opportunities to restrict the EPA's funding are also on the horizon. The first of these will take place when the Congress considers raising the debt ceiling to prevent the US from defaulting on its obligations; in order for the House to pass the ceiling hike, which all experts agree it must do, a series of additional spending cuts will need to be on the table. These discussions will begin right after the Easter recess. And once that battle is waged and won, Congress will begin discussions about the budget for FY2012, which starts on October 1, 2011. If even a portion of these efforts are successful, the EPA could look radically different by this time next year.