Republican lawmakers have included dozens of environmental policy riders in their 2016 spending bills, setting up a major clash with Democrats and the White House as lawmakers seek to hammer out a deal to fund the government.
While most of the policy riders likely will never become law, some could be bargaining chips for President Obama and Democrats in their pleas for the GOP to raise discretionary spending levels.
Republicans now have control of both chambers, giving them increased leverage to challenge the administration's efforts to confront climate change, protect waterways and conserve imperiled wildlife.
Green groups are wary.
"These bills are used to play a game of 'chicken' with the president, and to make it easier to slip unpopular measures through the Congress," wrote Scott Slesinger, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a blog post last month. "It shouldn't work, and it won't. The president has repeatedly stood up to this maneuver."
NRDC has tallied a list of dozens of policy provisions that have hitched rides on a handful of spending bills for the Interior Department and U.S. EPA as well as the Energy, Commerce and Justice departments.
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