The House Appropriations Committee this morning approved a bill to slash funding for the Interior Department and U.S. EPA, while halting agency efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, mining waste and waterways, among many other issues.

With passage of the $28 billion fiscal 2013 bill, Republicans have again aimed to curtail what they argue is rampant and wasteful spending and regulations that they say have draped a wet blanket on the nation's economy.

The committee this morning voted 26-19 to pass the measure that would cut EPA funding 17 percent -- dropping it to spending levels last seen in 1998 -- while significantly reducing Interior wildlife, climate change and land acquisition funding.

"The $28 billion provided in this bill addresses threats to our natural resources and wildlife, bolsters public safety, and nurtures economic growth and domestic energy production," said committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.).

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior and Environment, said that although the bill makes significant spending reductions, it sustains several key accounts including wildfire suppression, national parks and American Indian programs.

But sportsmen's and conservation groups continue to voice concerns over a proposed 21 percent cut to Fish and Wildlife Service, an 80 percent cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and a bevy of policy riders that they warn imperil the nation's air, water and lands.

"This bill is unworthy of passage based on its dramatic funding cuts alone," Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog post. "Add all the riders in to the equation, and it becomes an affront to 50 years of environmental bipartisan cooperation."

It is unclear whether House leaders will carve out time to debate the bill on the chamber's floor before the August recess, a move Democrats and environmentalists said would likely invite more harmful amendments.

Barring floor debate, the bill -- which is the product of a House budget plan that flouts a bicameral spending agreement reached nearly a year ago -- will be negotiated directly with the Senate. Closed-door negotiations among staff of both chambers resulted in the elimination of the vast majority of House riders in the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending bill.

Today's amendments

Committee members this morning adopted a handful of Republican amendments to block EPA plans to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants and asbestos from small residences, strengthen insurance for hardrock mines, and label lawn fertilizers.

While most drew vociferous Democratic objections, the committee did find bipartisan accord on a proposal by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to require EPA to report state proposals for managing regional haze.

In a 27-18 vote, the committee passed an amendment by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) that would block EPA's ability to curb CO2 from new and existing power plants, an apparent bid to topple an administration plan announced in March that would require new coal plants to bring their emissions in line with levels achieved by efficient natural gas power plants (Greenwire, March 27).

While the House in April passed similar legislation tying EPA's regulatory hands, Lummis said it is important to couch the language in a must-pass spending bill to compel Senate action.

"Carbon capture and sequestration technology has not been adequately tested and is nowhere near unsubsidized commercial viability," said Lummis, who is the lone representative for the nation's top coal-producing state. "The tortured analyses by EPA make it all too clear the rule is just another part of this administration's march against coal."

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., is moving ahead with construction of the nation's first carbon capture and storage project at a commercial-scale coal-fired power plant.

The amendment came one day after the committee voted to restrict EPA's plans to reduce global warming emissions from vehicles, a plan that was recently upheld by a federal appeals court (Greenwire, June 26).

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, noted that power plants are the nation's largest source of greenhouse gases and that Lummis' amendment is unnecessarily broad, because EPA has not sought to regulate existing plants.

EPA has said it has "no plans" to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, but it is required to do so under a settlement with environmental groups. Both environmentalists and industry representatives have said they expect the agency to eventually craft a New Source Performance Standard to limit carbon dioxide from existing plants.

Mining

Sparks flew during the hearing over a relatively obscure issue that has nonetheless come up numerous times in recent appropriations debates -- EPA's plan to impose new financial assurance requirements on hardrock mining operations and other industries under the Superfund law.

Lummis introduced an amendment, previously backed by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), to block EPA from moving forward with the proposal. "It would just be duplicative if the EPA then added another layer of bonding requirements," Lummis said, arguing that states and other federal agencies already impose financial requirements.

Democrats argued that if the system worked, the federal government wouldn't be footing the bill for mine cleanups. Moran said EPA was trying to make sure "taxpayers aren't left with the bill of cleaning abandoned mines."

Last December's omnibus spending agreement included a provision for EPA to study hardrock mining bonding issues before moving forward with rulemaking (Greenwire, Jan. 3).

Unlike last year, the panel did not vote on an amendment to scrap the Obama administration's mining limits around Grand Canyon National Park.

The underlying bill includes a provision to block the Office of Surface Mining from implementing the controversial stream protection rule. Other riders may come up if the bill hits the House floor, including limits on regulation of coal ash disposal.

Today's debate followed a rancorous first half of the markup yesterday in which Republicans successfully defended roughly 20 policy riders but during which Simpson surprisingly dropped a controversial provision to protect domestic sheep grazing in Idaho (Greenwire, June 27).

Members yesterday also voted down a bid by committee ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) to restore funding to the president's National Ocean Policy, which supports regional ocean management plans but has drawn criticism from Republicans who say it will add another layer of bureaucracy and could have far-reaching implications on land management.

Emily Woglom, government relations director for the Ocean Conservancy, called the amendment a "knee-jerk" reaction to an ocean policy that aims to save time and money and avoid conflicts.

"This is about ensuring that our natural resources are used efficiently and effectively so our coastal economies, now and in the future, flourish," she said yesterday in a statement.

Reporters Manuel Quinones and Jean Chemnick contributed.