Green groups and industry interests that have tangled all year long over GOP bids to slow President Obama's environmental policies are set to find out today which Republican riders, if any, have made it into a final 2012 spending deal.

House and Senate negotiators locked in a standoff over the dozens of spending-bill provisions that House Republicans have approved to handcuff U.S. EPA and the Interior Department expect to release the final text of their fiscal 2012 omnibus spending plan today, setting up votes in both chambers by week's end.

Yet the battle over those riders still could force the two agencies to operate under a separate continuing resolution (CR) for the next 10 months or even push lawmakers to patch a short-term extension on Friday's expiration of current government funding. That last-minute uncertainty underscores the degree to which the appropriations process has become a partisan battleground during a year of bitterly divided control on Capitol Hill.

The top House Democrat for Interior and EPA's budgets, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, told reporters Thursday that his party is prepared to give in on smaller-scale policy limits that do not impede top Obama administration priorities (E&E Daily, Dec. 9). But Moran appeared pessimistic that a compromise could be reached in time, suggesting that GOP leaders were exerting pressure on a process that he and Interior-EPA appropriations chief Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) might otherwise have successfully resolved.

"Mike knows where we stand," Moran said, projecting "at least a 50-50 chance" that Interior and EPA would have to abide under a CR until October in order to keep more contentious policy riders off the table. Environmentalists have said they would accept such an outcome if it means a rider-free spending plan, even though a CR at 2011 levels would leave the agencies more cash-poor than they would be under a new omnibus bill.

Among the major EPA policy limits hotly sought by the House GOP are handcuffs on the agency's cross-state air pollution rule, its curbs on toxic emissions from power plants, its industrial boiler regulations and its proposed checks on water pollution from mining operations.

Both Moran and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top upper-chamber appropriator for EPA and Interior, have hailed Simpson for good-faith negotiations and pointed to pressure from his right flank as behind the standoff over riders. The Idahoan has stood firm in favor of certain limits on White House policymaking, however, vowing in October that "there will be EPA riders or there won't be a bill" (E&ENews PM, Oct. 25).

In addition to the troubled EPA-Interior title, the omnibus poised for release today also would fund the Energy Department, the Army Corps of Engineers and other water programs for the remainder of fiscal 2012. That portion of the omnibus may well carry riders of its own, given language in the House version that blocked the administration's planned closure of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and limited the Army Corps' ability to issue Clean Water Act guidance.

One GOP rider that could cruise to passage in a final omnibus bill with Democratic support would prevent DOE from entering into loan guarantee agreements that put private financiers ahead of taxpayers in line for repayment in the event of default. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a chief author of that rider -- inspired by the flap over the administration's restructuring of a loan for ill-fated and now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra -- said late last week that he believed negotiators were ready to accept his language for a final omnibus deal.