The final $1 trillion spending package put forth by Republicans and Democrats last night includes a few significant new compromises on U.S. EPA programs that have Democrats claiming victory.

The fiscal 2012 omnibus includes a provision addressing the agency's program for assessing the health risks posed by chemicals and eliminates many controversial riders that Democrats charged the GOP tried to squeeze into the bill.

"I am pleased that we were able to resolve the major disagreements that Democrats expressed regarding legislative provisions inserted by House Republicans into several of these bills," the top House appropriator, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), said in a statement. "These contentious policy riders had no place in our annual appropriations bills, and it was encouraging that we were able to remove nearly all of them from the final version of this bill."

The omnibus spending deal is expected to clear the House before day's end, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this morning that his chamber would take the bill up within 36 hours at the latest. While a short-term continuing resolution (CR) could be needed to keep the government funded while the bill is enrolled into law and the omnibus is likely to lose some votes from the far right and left of both parties, its path to passage appeared smooth after a week of rockiness.

The final omnibus, like the House Republican version released earlier this week, still contains significant cuts to EPA's budget. It funds the agency at $8.4 billion, which is a $233 million reduction from enacted levels and $524 million below President Obama's request (Greenwire, Dec. 15).

But Democrats pointed to a laundry list of GOP policy proposals to undermine EPA regulations that they fought to remove from the final bill.

Among the most high profile, a measure to rein in EPA's efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions did not make it into the bill, nor did a Republican attempt to block EPA from protecting endangered species from pesticides.

The bill also did not contain a rider targeting EPA's air pollution rule for industrial boilers, which many observers expected would make its way in. In fact, appropriators indicated EPA's recent reconsideration of those standards satisfied their concerns (Greenwire, Dec. 2).

"The conferees are encouraged by the outcome of EPA's reconsideration of the Boiler MACT rule and offer no directives regarding Boiler MACT standards," they wrote in their managers' statement. "The proposed rule addresses substantive concerns by including additional flexibility with respect to compliance costs, and a biomass exemption."

To be sure, some Republican efforts -- such as a prohibition on EPA regulating greenhouse gases from manure management systems on farms, a ban on new light bulb efficiency standards and compromises on grazing on public lands -- still made it into the bill (see related story).

But, notably, the final bill contains a significant compromise for EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which assesses toxicological risk posed by chemicals and substances in commerce and the environment. IRIS's assessments serve as the basis of EPA and other agencies' regulations.

The IRIS program's scientific methodologies have been sharply criticized by industry and congressional Republicans. Democrats said Republicans sought to include language in the omnibus that "attempted to indefinitely the release of health assessments." IRIS already faces a backlog of thousands of assessments and such a move would effectively handcuff EPA from moving forward with a myriad of regulations, including potential drinking water limits on hexavalent chromium and perchlorate, both suspected carcinogens.

The final bill instead calls for EPA to implement recommendations made in a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) review in April of the IRIS formaldehyde assessment. The review severely criticized EPA's methodologies but agreed with some of its conclusions about formaldehyde causing certain cancers in humans (Greenwire, April 8).

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and others jumped on the report as an indication that EPA's IRIS assessments are scientifically unsound and called for all of them to go through an NAS review.

Appropriators did not go that far in the final bill. They called for EPA to implement the NAS recommendations, something the agency has already vowed to do. Further, the legislation tasks the agency with issuing a progress report on that process by March of next year.

The bill also calls for all IRIS assessments released in fiscal 2012 to include a section on how the NAS recommendations were applied to EPA's analysis.

Additionally, the omnibus stipulates EPA submit "up to three" IRIS reports to NAS for review to see if the assessments properly took into account the NAS guidelines. One of those reviews must be IRIS's assessment of the non-cancer health health hazard posed by oral exposure to inorganic arsenic.

Waterway funding largely unchanged

Money for major waterway ecosystems would remain largely unchanged from 2011 under the omnibus, with a few exceptions.

Everglades restoration, the largest ecosystem restoration project in the federal budget, would see funding slip slightly to $142 million, down from $155 million in 2011 and $180 million in 2010. Everglades advocates said they were concerned this could disrupt construction now under way on the first round of restoration projects, which were launched under the Obama administration after sitting on the shelf since their approval by Congress in 2000.

"Because we have everything under way and under construction it does make it more concerning," said Julie Hill-Gabriel, Everglades policy associate for Audubon of Florida.

However, Hill-Gabriel said Everglades boosters cheered language that would provide money to bridge another 5.5 miles of Tamiami Trail, an old Florida highway that cuts across the Everglades, blocking its flow. The first mile of bridge is currently under construction.

Chesapeake Bay restoration saw a $3 million gain, up from $54.4 million to $57.4 million. Puget Sound took the biggest hit, an $8.1 million drop from $38.1 million to $30 million. Gulf of Mexico funding jumped from $4.5 million to $5.5 million.

A policy rider that made its way into the bill would block completion of a Missouri River study that opponents feared would place greater emphasis on environmental uses of the river at the expense of commercial navigation and flood control. Other riders, which environmentalist deemed far worse, never made it in, including language to block Obama administration efforts to expand Clean Water Act protections over streams and wetlands, impose tighter water pollution limits in Florida or ease regulations on pesticides.

"It could have been much, much worse," said Josh Saks, senior legislative representative for water resources campaigns with the National Wildlife Federation.

Reporters Elana Schor and Paul Quinlan contributed.