A Republican House leader on energy issues yesterday said GOP appropriators should have added even more legislative riders to their fiscal 2012 U.S. EPA spending bill to delay or change the agency's plans to regulate air pollutants.

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said that while the Energy and Commerce subpanel he chairs is taking aim at EPA rules for mercury, ozone and other pollutants in a number of bills, he sees no reason appropriators shouldn't add similar language to their bill.

"I wished they would have done it," he said.

Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) has said he opted not to include riders in his bill that would delay or limit EPA rules for a variety of conventional pollutants because he did not want to duplicate the efforts of Whitfield's panel.

"Some things were just left out because the authorizing committees said that might screw up what we're trying to do in our committee," Simpson said last week.

But Whitfield disagreed that riders would "screw up" the legislative process. "Evidently somebody in the Energy and Commerce Committee didn't want him to do it," said Whitfield. "I wanted him to do it myself, because I like to get in as many shots as possible."

Simpson did include language in the spending bill, which cleared the full Appropriations Committee last night, that would bar EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, despite the fact that similar language has already passed the House.

Republican appropriators also succeeded in amending the spending bill to prohibit funds for some additional EPA rules. Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) added a rider to the bill that would bar EPA from implementing its Portland cement rule during fiscal 2012.

The new rule for mercury and toxic pollution from cement kilns is set to take effect in 2013. EPA says it is needed to protect public health, but Carter said it would destroy jobs in the cement industry, shipping them overseas to countries with fewer environmental restrictions.

He said a new standard for cement plants might be needed, but EPA should craft it in consultation with the industry. "They need to sit down with industry and create real solutions that don't destroy jobs," he said.

Carter did not offer an expected amendment that would exempt Texas from EPA's cross-state air pollution rule, also known as the "transport rule," which regulates soot and ozone emissions from power plants. A spokesman did not respond to an inquiry about why it was dropped.

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) saw her amendment adopted that would require EPA to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for all new regulations, and prohibit the agency from moving ahead with its mercury and ozone rules for power plants through fiscal 2012.

The rider mirrors a bill approved yesterday by the Energy and Commerce Committee. The House is expected to pass it quickly, and Whitfield predicted that it could even stand a chance in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

"I think it's really going to put a lot of pressure on some senators, particularly those up for re-election," he said.

The Energy and Commerce bill, known as the "Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011" or "TRAIN Act" (H.R. 2401) -- would create a cross-agency committee chaired by the secretary of Commerce to analyze the economic impacts of environmental regulations. It would also delay implementation of the utility MACT rule for mercury and other air toxics and the interstate transport rule for ozone until six months after the analysis is completed.