(1) House Appropriations Subcommittee Passes FY 2014 Budget Bill with Steep Cuts, Legislative Riders Affecting EPA (July 23, 2013) – By a party-line vote of 7 to 4, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies passed a bill containing FY 2014 funding for EPA. According to the Subcommittee Chair, Mike Simpson (R-ID), “simply put, this bill makes very difficult choices in an extremely tough budget environment. In order to fund critical ‘must-do’ priorities, like human health, public safety, and treaty obligations and responsibilities, we’ve had to reduce and even terminate some programs that are popular with both Members of Congress and the American people.” He added that “we are going to continue to see these kinds of dramatic reductions as long as we keep trying to reduce the debt by cutting discretionary spending alone, rather than also tackling mandatory spending, which is the real driver of our debt.” The Democrats on the Subcommittee had a different take. Most notably, the Ranking Member, Rep. James Moran (D-VA), referred to the bill as a “disgrace” and walked out of the mark-up in protest. Overall, the bill funds EPA at $5.5 billion, a $2.8-billion reduction (34 percent) from last year’s enacted levels. While the bill provides no specific information on individual categorical grants (this information is generally included in Committee “report” language), we have learned that section 103/105 grants for state and local agencies will be $190.9 million, a reduction of $33 million (14.7 percent) from the FY 2013 level of $223.9 million and a cut of $66.3 million (25.8 percent) from the President’s requested amount of $257.2 million. The bill calls for $18.9 million for programs under the Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA), which is equal to the FY 2013 enacted level and $12.9 million above the $6 million requested by the President for FY 2014. Included in the bill are several specific provisions affecting the air program, such as, among others, retaining PM2.5 monitoring funds under section 103 authority, rather than shifting them to section 105 authority as the President’s proposed budget recommended; prohibiting EPA from finalizing, implementing or enforcing the Tier 3 Motor Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards; and prohibiting the use of funds for the development, implementation or enforcement of any section 111 regulation applicable to greenhouse gas emissions by any new or existing electric utility generating unit. Full Committee mark-up is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. For further information: http://appropriations.house.gov/Uploade ... eDraft.pdf (Subcommittee bill – EPA portion is on pages 56-66) and http://4cleanair.org/Documents/HouseFY14Markup.pdf.
Syndi Smallwood, MAS
Environmental Director
Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians
PO Box 1477
Temecula, CA 92592
951-770-6150 phone
951-695-5568 fax
909-732-8483 cell