Republican appropriators yesterday said Senate Democrats may be deliberately skipping committee votes on a fiscal 2012 spending bill for U.S. EPA and the Interior Department because they are afraid it would give committee members a chance to add anti-regulatory language to the bill, as has been done in the House.

The only Senate appropriations bill that has not received a markup is the Interior and EPA bill, and no schedule has been set for it.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who leads the House subcommittee that oversees the Interior-EPA budget, said the delay was strategic.

"They're holding it back, I believe, because there are some policy provisions in there that they'll lose [on]," Simpson said.

Simpson said he believed there might be enough support in the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass an amendment barring EPA from moving ahead with climate change regulations in fiscal 2012, or from expanding the scope of the Clean Water Act.

"There are a number of things over there," he said.

Both amendments are part of the House version of the fiscal 2012 Interior and Environment spending bill, which came to the floor before the August recess.

The House adjourned without passing the bill, but not before it had attached numerous riders that would prevent EPA from implementing a wide range of new regulations under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and other laws in the coming fiscal year.

The federal government is currently funded by a stopgap continuing resolution, but Congress must pass new spending legislation by Nov. 18. It is widely believed that Congress will pass several appropriations bills together in the form of an omnibus, which would make it less necessary for appropriators to follow the usual legislative process.

Still, Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) yesterday said he was making progress on his bill and still expected to move it individually.

"We are working on it now, and we're still of the mindset to have a bill," Reed said.

The senator added that he and his staff were "working in good faith" with colleagues on the committee, including ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to complete the bill.

"We are trying to conceptually work through first the funding levels -- because we think frankly there's more common ground there -- and then consider the legislative language," Reed said. "And not just the controversial riders, but other legislative language. And we haven't reached that point yet where we've made decisions."

Reed said called the riders "highly, highly divisive."

Still, he did not rule out including some EPA riders on his bill.

"We're going to one by one look at them, but we haven't made any determinations," Reed said.

Murkowski said she did not think it was likely that the Interior and EPA bill would receive a committee markup. "I am not optimistic at this point, but we're still talking about it," she said.

Asked whether he thought Reed might be dragging his heels on the bill to avoid a confrontation on policy riders during the committee markup, Senate Republican Appropriations Committee spokesman Chris Gallegos said "yes."

Reporters Phil Taylor, Jason Plautz and Elana Schor contributed.