IHouse Republicans approved legislation Friday that would slash nearly 40 percent of the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The funding bill, passed by a 213-203 vote, cuts 39 percent of the EPA’s budget and would be the smallest budget the agency has had in three decades. Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.) and Marc Molinaro (N.Y.) voted against the bill, while Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (Texas) was recorded as voting for it.
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“Cutting funding is never easy or pretty, but with the national debt in excess of $33 trillion and inflation at an unacceptable level, we had to make tough choices to rein in federal spending,” Simpson said on the floor Thursday.
It additionally seeks to defund the EPA’s efforts to curtail toxic pollution and planet-warming emissions, preventing the agency from using funding to enforce its rules on power plants.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine), the top Democrat on the Interior-Environment funding subcommittee, said the bill “debilitates America’s ability to address the climate crisis and hobbles the agencies within its jurisdiction.”
The bill looks drastically different from its counterpart in the Senate, which calls for $7 billion more in total funding than the legislation passed in the House and was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in committee earlier this year.
The gap comes as no surprise, as House Republicans announced earlier this year they would be marking up their fiscal 2024 government funding plans below the budget caps deal struck between President Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the summer.
But Simpson and other top appropriators told The Hill in recent days that they have been backing away from earlier plans to further big-dollar cuts to the funding legislation, as conservatives have signaled they’ll give Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
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