Correction appended.

The House voted yesterday to block the Obama administration's National Ocean Policy by prohibiting any funds in the fiscal 2013 Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill from being used to implement it.

President Obama signed an executive order last summer creating a new National Ocean Council, which is charged with developing a plan to streamline management of national waters and coasts and strike a balance between energy development, fishing, shipping and recreation.

While numerous industry and environmental groups support the policy, it has been sharply criticized by Republicans who say it will add another layer of bureaucracy and could have far-reaching implications on land management.

"The National Ocean Policy could extend to regulation of every farm and ranch in the U.S.," said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), citing a letter from farmers opposed to the policy. "I think they are right on with that."

Democrats jumped to defend the National Ocean Policy, saying it would not create new rules, but streamline existing regulations and reduce red tape by encouraging coordination among the numerous agencies charged with ocean stewardship.

"It is time for Republicans to stop being afraid of common-sense initiatives like the National Ocean Policy," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), adding later that "opposing ocean planning is like opposing air traffic control."

The rider proposed by Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) was approved 246-174. A final vote on the CJS appropriations bill is expected today.

A group of GOP lawmakers, led by Hastings, has called for all appropriations bills to carry a similar rider. However, such riders will have to survive negotiations with the Senate.

If included in final law, the prohibition could prove difficult for NOAA. The National Ocean Policy does not have its own budget. Rather, work on the policy stretches across a variety of the agency's programs, research and management -- on anything from mapping the seafloor to regional grants for ocean planning.

Officials from NOAA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have said they would have to do a legal analysis of any rider to determine its ramifications and how it would affect their work.

But Deerin Babb-Brott, the new director of the National Ocean Council office, said in a recent interview that it would be a challenge to try to stop all work related to the National Ocean Policy across the government.

"The ocean policy doesn't create new programs, the ocean policy better organizes the existing policies, existing programs and existing initiatives to get things done," Babb-Brott said. "I don't understand how you would disassociate agency action under current congressional authorization."

Alternative fuels

The House also approved an amendment from Flores that would prohibit the use of funds to enforce section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The measure, which passed 250-173, would effectively block a 2007 ban on government purchase of dirty fuels.

Flores said the provision limits fuel choices, while Democrats argued it saves money by encouraging federal agencies to be as energy-efficient as possible.

The issue -- whether the U.S. government should be forbidden from purchasing fuels with a higher lifetime greenhouse gas footprint than traditional petroleum -- came up in a number of spending bills last year. But it struck an especially strong chord as it relates to the Defense Department, the government's largest purchaser of fuel (see related story).

Flores last year introduced a provision repealing the ban in the defense appropriations bill, but it was ultimately dropped from the final bill.

Calif. water and salmon

The House also adopted by voice vote an amendment by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) that would prohibit the National Marine Fisheries Service from using any funds to reintroduce salmon into the San Joaquin River in the Central Valley of California.

"Every year, the San Joaquin Restoration Program would require the reintroduction of salmon into the San Joaquin River if the ill-advised attempt to introduce the species fails," Denham said. "The problem is that the river is not yet in a condition where the salmon can survive. ... Premature introduction of salmon into the river will only lead to their death, at a high cost to the taxpayer, and the local community."

But Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) said the amendment would disrupt a 2006 settlement that aimed to end 18 years of litigation over water flows, salmon and other endangered species in the region. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) added it would "unravel" Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) 2009 legislation to implement the settlement and would unnecessarily restart a water war.

Denham said his amendment would have the same effect as a bill the House approved earlier this year, H.R. 1837, which Feinstein opposed. That bill would put farmers first in line in California for water, which Republican proponents said would end the state's "man-made" drought and Democrats said flouted state sovereignty on behalf of a few powerful agricultural interests.

House lawmakers voted 246-175 in late February to approve the bill from California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes. But both that measure and yesterday's amendment have little chance of advancing in the Senate.

Nunes' legislation would shift water from environmental uses in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to sprawling farms in the Central Valley. At its core, his bill would repeal a 2009 law governing central California water and replace it with 1994 policy known as the Bay-Delta Accord, while also rolling back Endangered Species Act compliance requirements to that year (E&E Daily, March 1.)

Sea turtles

Another amendment to the CJS bill targeted a NOAA proposal to require more ships to use turtle excluder devices. It was approved 218-201.

The rider from Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) seeks to prohibit funding to implement a proposed rule, set to publish in today's Federal Register, that is intended to aid in the protection and recovery of imperiled sea turtles by reducing their accidental bycatch and death in shrimp nets.

The proposed rule, if implemented, would expand the kinds of ships that must use special gear intended to protect sea turtles. It would require all skimmer trawls, pusher-head trawls and butterfly trawls to use turtle excluder devices in their nets.

NOAA is considering a range of new regulations to protect sea turtles, as deaths of the animals have skyrocketed, with hundreds washing up dead on beaches in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists have sued the government in an effort to force more protections for the turtles.

The government has required other shrimpers to use "turtle excluder devices," or TEDs, on fishing gear since the early 1990s. TEDs are escape hatches for turtles. When installed properly, the devices are 97 percent effective at preventing sea turtle death.

Shrimpers have complained that the devices reduce their catch and make it hard for them to compete with foreign shrimpers who do not have the same restrictions.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated when a settlement was made and misattributed a statement to Rep. Chaka Fattah.