House appropriators are debating a GOP spending plan that slashes funding to U.S. EPA and the Interior Department and blocks numerous Obama administration regulatory efforts, a far-reaching proposal that Democrats characterized as a short-sighted assault on vital environmental protections written to please special interests.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, said in his opening remarks that his panel's fiscal 2012 funding bill would reduce agency interference in economic development while cutting discretionary spending.

"Is this a perfect bill? No," Simpson said. "But it's a bill that makes some very tough choices on spending. It's a bill that attempts to rein in the excesses of EPA. And it's a bill that sends a clear message to stakeholders that it's time to get busy on renewing expiring authorizations."

The subcommittee's top Democrat, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, said that he had expected the deep cuts the bill makes to program spending but was particularly concerned about the many legislative riders it includes to head off environmental rules, including EPA's greenhouse gas emissions program. A bevy of riders loaded into the bill by GOP lawmakers would block the agencies from moving forward with numerous rules and actions under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and other major environmental laws.

"Our basic objection is that this bill is too short on needed funds and too long on anti-environmental riders," Moran said. "It's not so much a spending bill as it is a wish list for special interests."

Moran offered an amendment to strike all of the legislative riders from the bill, warning that "if this fails, we'll have to go after most of them one by one." It was defeated on a party-line vote.

Among the numerous environmental policies under fire from Republicans, Simpson singled out the Endangered Species Act in his opening remarks. He declared the law a "policy failure" and said that 21 of the 2,018 species listed for protection had been recovered.

"By any calculation, that's a pretty poor track record," Simpson said. "Any other program with such a poor rate of success would have long since been terminated."

The GOP fiscal plan would place a moratorium on new species listings and critical habitat designations, prohibits species delisting decisions from being challenged in court, cuts nearly 80 percent of funding for federal land acquisitions and slashes wetlands conservation money in half.

Land acquisition funding would be cut from $301 million this year to $62 million -- a fraction of the $900 million sought by President Obama -- to complete just those deals that are already under way, Simpson said. He added that the nation's fiscal hole necessitated the cuts to programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a statement that has infuriated conservation groups.

"While I personally would like to see more funding for LWCF, the problem is we just don't have the money," Simpson said.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) countered that the fund is fueled by proceeds from oil and gas drilling, rather than taxpayers, and decried the low level of funding for a program that has "done more than any other program" to create parks, recreation areas and green spaces.

"There's no way it can even come close to meeting the needs across this nation," Honda said. "I know that allocation is tight. ... That doesn't make it right."

Altogether, the spending bill would fund Interior at $9.9 billion for fiscal 2012, $715 million less than it received in fiscal 2011.

EPA would receive an even deeper cut -- the agency would receive $7.1 billion, about $1.5 billion below this year's levels and $1.8 billion less than the president wants. The bulk of EPA's cuts come from water infrastructure assistance to states, with the Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds receiving a $1 billion haircut compared with current levels.

Appropriations ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) criticized the water infrastructure cuts, noting that EPA has identified upward of $700 billion in needed upgrades to the aging pipelines and treatment systems across the United States.

"That backlog will not disappear if we just ignore it, but as we have seen in so many cases this year, the Republican leadership has decided to push this problem farther down the road," Dicks said.

The bill takes on climate change mitigation and adaptation activities throughout EPA and Interior, cutting their budgets by $83 million, or 22 percent.

Simpson said in his prepared remarks that there is not enough transparency in how program funds are spent. "The fact is that climate change funding has been increasing over the last few years and no one has any idea how or whether this funding is being coordinated between the various agencies," Simpson said.

The bill would also prevent EPA from moving ahead with current and planned regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources such as power plants and oil refineries. It does so by amending the Clean Air Act to temporarily remove the legislative basis for EPA's climate rules.

Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) will offer an amendment at today's markup to strike the rider from the bill.

Simpson said last week that he avoided including language in the bill that would address EPA's pending rules for mercury and other air toxics, noting that the Energy and Commerce Committee plans to address the boiler and utility MACT rules in legislation this summer.

But Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) plans to offer amendments to the bill today that would mandate changes to the boiler MACT rule, and another that would effectively exempt certain states, including Texas, from the rule EPA finalized last week that would require cuts in soot- and smog-forming smokestack emissions from power plants in 27 Eastern states.

Carter said in a news release last week that EPA had included Texas in the so-called transport rule for political reasons, not because the state's smokestack emissions affect other states.

"Texas should not be subject to EPA discriminatory action solely designed to punish a politically conservative state," he said. "This rule promises job losses, higher electric bills and potential power shortages, all for no health benefits according to EPA's own modeling, which shows we're not contributing to downstate air quality degradation."