House Republicans yesterday unveiled a bill to fund the government through mid-November that cuts $1.5 billion in Energy Department clean cars spending to pay for disaster aid, raising the specter of a clash with Michigan lawmakers who back the slashed program.

The new continuing resolution (CR) gives appropriators in both chambers until Nov. 18 to finish budget blueprints for fiscal 2012 that starts at month's end. Spending limits set by the debt-limit deal reached five weeks ago were expected to minimize political jockeying over a new CR, but the House majority's taking of money from the fuel-efficient cars program to replenish federal disaster-relief coffers could provoke confrontation with Democrats.

When a House Appropriations subpanel approved a $500 billion cut to the DOE cars program in June to pay for flood-control assistance, 14 Democrats joined Reps. John Dingell of Michigan, Henry Waxman of California and Sander Levin of Michigan in urging Republicans to treat the disaster aid as an emergency not requiring offsets elsewhere in the budget. That the new CR cuts the same clean cars fund by three times as much positions House Democrats to ratchet up the charges that the GOP is compromising progress on fuel efficiency.

Sander Levin's brother, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), suggested similar resistance in the upper chamber, telling E&E Daily earlier this year that he hoped to see Congress "do what we've always done" and preserve the DOE funding by designating the new disaster aid as an emergency (E&E Daily, June 27). Beyond their longtime support for the efficient-vehicles program, which was created in 2007, many Democrats are broadly opposed to the notion of seeking offsets for emergency aid.

Yet the House Appropriations panel's top Democrat, Norm Dicks of Washington, signaled that his party leaders might avoid a fight over the CR's offsets. Dicks decried the bill for "pit[ting] disaster funding against other important budget priorities," such as the DOE clean car loans, but added in a statement that "despite my concerns, I will support this CR."

A cavalcade of natural disasters around the country this year, from Hurricane Irene in the Northeast to Midwestern floods, has left the Federal Emergency Management Agency's purse all but depleted and forced relief officials to limit spending on long-term projects. The House CR would provide an initial $1 billion infusion for fiscal 2011, including $226 million for Army Corps of Engineers flood control and more than double that total to $2.65 billion for 2012.

"[T]his legislation will support desperately needed recovery and relief efforts in these disaster areas," House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said in a statement that underscored the funding bill's must-pass status.

"The American people simply do not want or deserve -- and our recovering economy can scarcely handle -- the dangerous instability of a government shutdown, or any unnecessary holdups in disaster recovery efforts."

In addition to the DOE clean cars cuts, the stopgap spending bill cuts 1.4 percent from most federal agency budgets, keeping funds beneath caps set by the debt-limit agreement, maintains money for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and extends the availability of federal flood insurance, according to a summary released by Rogers' office.

Click here to read the text of House Republicans' nine-week CR.