The president will veto any spending bill that comes to his desk laden with too many policy riders or too little program funding, Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew told appropriators in a letter last week.

The letter to the House and Senate Appropriations committees' chairmen and ranking members last Wednesday warned that if Congress passes a bill "that undermines critical domestic priorities or national security through funding levels or language restrictions, contains earmarks, or fails to make the tough choices to cut where needed while maintaining what we need to spur long-term job creation and win the future, the President will veto the bill."

House Republican leaders are under pressure from some of their members to make deep cuts in discretionary programs, but Lew said the White House would not accept unlimited reductions to Energy Department and U.S. EPA programs.

The administration requests "no less than" $1.95 billion for DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs, $4.95 billion for the Office of Science and $105 million for the Energy Information Administration, the letter states.

The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill that cleared the chamber in July would provide $1.3 billion for EERE and $4.8 billion for the Office of Science. EIA would receive $105 million.

For EPA, the letter "urges" Congress to provide at least $450 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and asked that EPA's operations budget remain at the fiscal 2011 level.

The House bill (H.R. 2584) would provide $65.8 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, while the Senate committee's draft would provide $338 million.

The House bill would also make deep cuts to EPA's budget, providing a total of $7.1 billion for the agency, or about $1.5 billion below this year's levels.

The letter also warned against the inclusion of "extraneous provisions."

"The primary purpose of appropriations legislation is to fund the Government, and the Administration strongly opposes ideological and political provisions in these bills," it states.

These include riders that "undermine environmental protections and conservation," it says.

The House Interior-EPA spending bill includes numerous riders that would place a one-year moratorium on rules for hazardous, smog- and soot-forming emissions from a variety of sources and would block implementation of changes to the Clean Water Act.

Congress must pass legislation to fund the federal government before Nov. 18, when a stopgap spending bill expires. A number of House Republicans are expected to vote against measures they say include too much discretionary spending, but Democratic leaders say House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) cannot count on their caucus members to make up the difference if the final appropriations bill or bills include controversial riders.