House Republicans Take Hatchet to Obama's Environmental Budget

House Republicans are teeing up another attack on the Obama administration's climate plan, proposing to slash the Environmental Protection Agency's budget and blocking the tentpole rule limiting emissions from power plants. The fiscal 2016 spending bill for EPA, the Interior Department, and other agencies also carries riders that would bar EPA's controversial redefinition of its Clean Water Act authority, prevent the administration from increasing oil and gas inspection fees, and block the listing of the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. The Obama administration has gone full force into the climate plan in its budget request, spending billions across EPA, the Energy Department, and other agencies to advance clean-energy and climate-change regulations. Republicans have vowed to take an axe to such programs: The House Energy spending bill slashed funding for renewable programs in favor of fossil fuels, while the spending bill for the State Department zeroed out funding for an international climate-change fund. Overall, the $30.17 billion bill would cut EPA's budget by $718 million, or 9 percent, from the fiscal 2015 enacted level. The $7.4 billion spending level for the agency is well below President Obama's request of $8.6 billion. To keep EPA in check, the bill would also cut $69 million from the agency's regulatory programs ($206 million below the budget request) and hold staffing levels to 15,000, the lowest level since 1989. The move was made, the committee said, to "focus its activities on core duties, rather than unnecessary regulatory expansion." The bill also blocks EPA's Waters of the United States rule, which provides clarity over what waterways EPA could regulate. Republicans say the redefinition gives EPA more authority than it had in the past and would overstep on the agricultural and construction industry. Similar language was included in the House-passed Energy and Water appropriations bill and in a separate bill passed just days later...more

If that's a hatchet job, then its clear they should have used an axe.