House Republicans sent a sweeping package of spending cuts and policy riders targeting the Interior Department and U.S. EPA to the House floor after Democrats on the Appropriations Committee repeatedly failed to muster the votes to restore environmental protections, programs and regulatory initiatives slated for elimination.

Democrats and Republicans alike said last night that much of what the House committee has passed may survive into the final bill, although President Obama and Senate Democrats are expected to challenge many of the provisions once they advance through the GOP-controlled House.

"I think we should be very concerned that many of these could see the light of day," said Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, who serves as top Democrat on the Interior and Environment subcommittee.

Many of the policy riders in the current bill, including a stay on EPA's greenhouse gas regulations from power plants and other sources, were initially part of the House's version of a fiscal 2011 continuing spending bill (H.R. 1) for the federal government, and Senate and White House negotiators cut them out.

But Moran warned that this might not happen again, given that Republicans had used a must-pass spending measure.

"We don't have as much leverage as we had with H.R. 1," he said, noting that it was negotiated under the shadow of a potential government shutdown and with heavy involvement from the White House.

"We were able to get the Senate to say 'no riders' -- they didn't get specific about any of them," he said. "This time around, it's contained within an appropriations bill, and there may be a deal."

If Democrats have to choose between rolling back the bill's heavy cuts to programs or getting rid of policy riders such as the greenhouse gas provision or the bill's prohibition on new listings under the Endangered Species Act, said Moran, he hoped the Senate would choose the latter.

"These riders are the worst," he said.

The Interior and Environment subcommittee's chairman, Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), maintained that some or all of the riders could become law.

"I don't think we could pass a conference report that comes back at a higher level than what we pass here," he said. "And many of the riders are obviously important to members of the House. If you start dropping out those riders, or those funding limitation amendments, I don't know that it will pass the House when you come back. So you have to fight for all of it."

While the continuing resolution was negotiated by chamber leaders and the White House, he said, the fiscal 2012 spending bill is likely to be hammered out in a House-Senate conference, making it more likely that negotiators will go through the policy riders one by one.

"If we do a conference, obviously we are going to be more focused on what our bill includes," he said, adding that that would mean fighting for amendments.

Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said he would not say what his priorities -- spending cuts or policy riders -- would be in a conference.

"We can't talk about that right now," Rogers said. "I don't want to tell you or anyone else what our priorities are going to be."

Other Republicans said they did not think they would have to choose between cuts and policy curbs, though most said that EPA is likely to bear the brunt of both.

"I think the number one priority is reining the EPA back in," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of the committee. "I've never seen this much anger." He added, "Between the lack of popularity of the agency and the pressing nature of the fiscal crisis, I would expect that we would have a good chance to press our case in both spending reduction and riders."

Amendments

Before approving the bill, the committee debated numerous Democratic amendments that would have jettisoned the riders. A Moran amendment to strike all riders from the bill went down, forcing Democrats to go provision by provision through the entire bill.

Democratic attempts to cut out provisions repeatedly failed along mostly party-line votes.

An amendment from Appropriations Committee ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) failed that would have scrapped the bill's prohibition on the Fish and Wildlife Service's listing of any new plants or animals under the Endangered Species Act.

At the onset of the markup, Simpson called ESA a "policy failure," saying that 21 of the 2,018 species listed for protection had been recovered.

"By any calculation, that's a pretty poor track record," Simpson said.

The spending bill places a moratorium on new species listings and critical habitat designations, prohibits species delisting decisions from being challenged in court, cuts nearly 80 percent of funding for federal land acquisitions and slashes wetlands conservation money in half.

Moran also filed an amendment to strike language that would prevent the administration from enacting a long-term ban on mining near Grand Canyon National Park, a provision that Moran said would allow a South Korean company to mine for uranium under a deal that required no royalty payments and could pollute the Colorado River (see related story).

Republicans countered with the argument that carried the day: that the language sought to protect jobs.

Republicans, on the other hand, succeeded in piling on amendments that sought to roll back Obama administration EPA initiatives.

One from Rep. Denny Rehburg (R-Mont.) would block the Obama administration from imposing new financial requirements for mining operations to guarantee they could afford pollution cleanup until EPA completed a study to ensure the availability of credit and financing.

Another from Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) would prevent EPA from imposing tougher water pollution requirements that Republicans said would foist billions of dollars in costs on Florida taxpayers and businesses.

Both passed, despite Democratic efforts to undo them.

Republicans also offered amendments that would bar EPA from drafting tailpipe emissions rules for vehicles after model year 2016 and to require a cost-benefit analysis for Clean Air Act rules. Both were added to the bill.

Deep cuts for Interior, EPA

Altogether, the spending bill would fund Interior at $9.9 billion for fiscal 2012, $715 million less than it received in fiscal 2011.

EPA would receive an even deeper cut -- the agency would receive $7.1 billion, about $1.5 billion below this year's levels and $1.8 billion less than the president wants. The bulk of EPA's cuts come from water infrastructure assistance to states, with the Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds receiving a $1 billion haircut compared with current levels.

Land acquisition funds would be cut from $301 million this year to $62 million -- a fraction of the $900 million sought by Obama and just enough to complete those deals that are already under way, according to Simpson. Budget realities, he added, force the cuts to the much-beloved Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which has protected millions of acres of wetlands and waterfowl habitat.

"While I personally would like to see more funding for LWCF, the problem is we just don't have the money," Simpson said.

Appropriations Committee ranking member Dicks criticized the water infrastructure cuts, noting that EPA has identified upward of $700 billion in needed upgrades to the aging pipelines and treatment systems across the United States.

"That backlog will not disappear if we just ignore it, but as we have seen in so many cases this year, the Republican leadership has decided to push this problem farther down the road," Dicks said.

The bill takes on climate change mitigation and adaptation activities throughout EPA and Interior, cutting their budgets by $83 million, or 22 percent.

Environmental and conservation groups lambasted the bill. The Pew Environmental Trust sent a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator to the committee meeting room to call attention to the cuts targeting conservation programs and other policy riders.

"This bill is a direct assault on the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the places we love," said Shelley Vinyard, toxics advocate for the group Environment America. "Not only does it block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from setting critical clean air, clean water and public health safeguards, but it also puts some of America's most treasured places like the Grand Canyon at risk of destruction."