When the House Appropriations Committee considers a proposed $27.9
billion spending bill for the Interior Department, Forest Service and
U.S. EPA this week, the debate will be more
about gasoline prices than the merits of the bill itself.
Republicans plan on introducing amendments aimed at developing
domestic resources of oil and gas, including the outer continental
shelf (OCS), oil shale and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
according to Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)
Tiahrt, the ranking member of the Interior Appropriations
Subcommittee, said Wednesday’s full committee markup will be all about
energy.
“When it gets to the full committee it’s going to be a case about
whether we pay above $4 for a gallon of gas or below $4,” he said.
Regardless of what happens in committee, Tiahrt said it is unlikely
that the spending bill will ever make it to the House floor.
Tiahrt said he expects there may be a continuing resolution after the
presidential election in November that will carry into the new
administration, though Congress could pass some Defense-related
spending bills, and even the Interior bill before then.
The subcommittee last week approved the spending bill by unanimous
voice vote. Tiahrt said the subcommittee wanted to send a strong
message to the full committee that they supported the funding proposal
and should be treated separately from the energy debate that will
ensue.
The only amendment considered by the subcommittee last week was one
from Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) to lift a moratorium on exploring for
oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf. The amendment
would allow for exploration from 50 miles to 200 miles offshore and
allow for oil and natural gas preleasing and leasing activities to
begin on the OCS.
In 2006, the Minerals Management Service estimated that undiscovered,
technically recoverable resources on the entire
OCS totaled 86 billion barrels of oil and
420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
“This is completely misleading,” subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks
(D-Wash.) said last week of GOP efforts to
open up the OCS, calling it a “red herring
and desperate attempt” to open up more offshore areas when oil
companies are barely using the areas that have leased now.
Noting that MMS also reports that 82 percent
of natural gas reserves and 79 percent of its oil reserves in the
OCS are in areas that are already open to
drilling, Dicks said more focus should be on price speculation and
other factors that affect the price of gasoline rather than just open
more resources.
With the prospects low that any energy amendment introduced Wednesday
would make it onto the House floor, let alone signed into law,
observers say Wednesday’s debate will be more about getting the
parties on the record about energy.
“With energy prices where they are, both parties are trying to present
their prospective on what the government needs to be involved in
responding to that,” said Lee Fuller, Independent Petroleum
Association of America’s vice president for government relations.
Interior and Forest Service
The $27.9 billion spending bill, more than $2 billion over President
Bush’s request, would reverse proposed White House spending cuts for
fiscal 2009, providing significant boosts in funding for national
parks, fire suppression and wildlife refuges.
The bill includes $2.6 billion for the National Park Service,
including a $158 million increase in funding for operational budgets
at the parks, along with $175 million to jump-start an initiative to
revitalize the deteriorating National Mall.
The Fish and Wildlife Service would get $1.4 billion. The National
Wildlife Refuge system, an area of concern for the subcommittee’s
leadership, would see its funding rise by $35 million to $469 million.
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geological Survey would see
minor increases over their current budgets, with
BLM getting a 0.5 percent increase over its
current funding level to $1.013 billion and
USGS seeing its budget rise to $1.05
billion.
Indian schools and social services are the biggest beneficiaries of
the bill with a proposed $6 billion budget for the Indian Health
Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a $350 million increase over
the 2008 enacted levels.
For the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service, the spending bill
restores almost $400 million in cuts proposed by the administration,
providing an increase of $473 million for agency programs.
It also includes language that would prohibit the borrowing of funds
from other agency priorities to fund wildfire suppression. Under the
provision, no borrowing will be allowed unless the president submits a
formal budget request to Congress to replace the funds. The request
must be signed by the president before funds can be allocated.
Interior is concerned the rule would add an additional step to
acquiring and replenishing funds. Another swing at royalty relief
The spending bill also carries Democratic language to address the
flawed late-1990s deepwater oil and gas leases that could cost the
federal government more than $14 billion.
The language seeks to ensure royalty payments from late 1990s Gulf of
Mexico leases that currently allow royalty waivers regardless of
energy prices. Deepwater leases Interior issued in 1998 and 1999 lack
clauses – called “price thresholds” – that suspend the royalty waivers
when prices exceed certain limits.
The provision from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) would prevent
companies holding these leases from participating in future lease
sales. The provision was also included in last year’s House-passed
Interior spending bill, and similar measures appeared in other energy
bills the House has approved but never made it to the president’s
desk. $700M boost for EPA
The spending bill also would increase U.S.
EPA’s budget by nearly $700 million.
The legislation would provide the agency with $7.8 billion, restoring
funding for key water and air programs that were drastically cut in
the Bush administration’s budget proposal.
Chief among those is the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a
low-interest wastewater loan program that helps states construct water
treatment facilities. The fund would receive $850 million in fiscal
2009 under the House bill, a nearly $300 million increase from the
White House request of $555 million. The fiscal 2008 budget for the
fund was $689 million.
Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle blasted the White
House cut, calling the level of funding provided completely inadequate
to deal with the nation’s wastewater and infrastructure needs.
The spending bill also would increase overall funding for science and
technology from the $764 million requested by the White House to $793
million. Funding for environmental programs and management would rise
$59 million.
Funding for Superfund cleanup would increase $20 million, and programs
aimed at restoring and protecting prominent bodies of water would
receive about $45 million more than in the Bush administration’s
proposal.