Isra-Mart srl:US budget battle lines drawn: Republicans vote to cut climate science funding

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Republicans in the House of Representatives this weekend voted through a sweeping spending bill that would slash spending on environmental programmes and, in a highly symbolic move, axe all US funding for the UN's climate science panel.

The bill draws the battle lines for weeks of intense budget negotiations with Democrats, who are seeking far more modest spending cuts that would largely protect clean tech and environmental programmes.

The bill, which covers government spending through to September, features $61bn of spending cuts, but many of the most controversial proposals are reserved for environmental issues, with cuts totaling around $3bn set out for green programmes.

The bill proposes deep cuts to the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and includes amendments that would block the agency from enforcing controversial rules designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power and industrial plants.

However, Republicans also voted through a host of further amendments that block the EPA from taking action on a wide variety of other environmental regulations.

For example, the bill contains several amendments that would stop the EPA from toughening or enforcing water quality regulations relating to mountaintop removal coal-mining projects. Similarly, proposed EPA regulations tackling coal ash, particulate matter and mercury emissions from cement kilns would all be blocked under the bill.

In addition, the bill proposed a package of relatively small spending cuts designed to underline Republican opposition to climate change science and regulation.

In particular, the bill would cut the $2.3m a year the US provides to the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and block the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from setting up a new climate services.

The bill also takes the fight over climate change policy direct to the White House, proposing that the budget that would allow the administration to replace exiting climate change advisor Carol Browner be scrapped.

The bill is likely to be blocked in the Senate, which is still controlled by the Democrats, but it sets the scene for intense negotiations over this year's budget and makes it plain that Republicans will push hard for cuts to environmental spending as part of any compromise deal.

Environmental and health groups mobilised over the weekend, outlining plans for a series of rallies and press conferences that will accuse Republicans of approving a budget that would gut clean air and water regulations.

"There are members of the House who are okay with exposing their constituents to potentially life-threatening pollution," Peter Iwanowicz of the American Lung Association told the Hill blog in Washington. "Lawmakers are totally out of step with where the voters are."