Democrats on the House floor failed this morning to strike a GOP-authored provision from a major spending bill that would block Obama administration efforts to strengthen federal Clean Water Act protections.

Reps. Jim Moran (D-Va.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) put forward an amendment to the 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would strike a provision inserted by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.). The amendment failed 152-237.

The vote keeps alive Rehberg's policy rider, which would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from implementing Obama administration-proposed Clean Water Act regulatory guidance.

Failure of the Moran-Dingell amendment came as no surprise. The GOP-controlled House has inserted provisions similar to Rehberg's in other recently passed spending bills.

Although the provisions are intended to derail the administration's Clean Water Act guidance, none has found its way past the Democratic-controlled Senate and into law.

Administration officials, environmentalists and their Democratic allies champion the guidance as an overdue effort to restore federal water pollution and wetland-filling rules rolled back by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of two muddled Supreme Court rulings. The policy is now under final White House review (Greenwire, Feb. 22).

"This rider permanently blocks the Army Corps of Engineers from fixing existing policies that are confusing and inconsistent and not working," Moran said.

Agriculture, homebuilding, mining and oil industries and their Republican allies say the guidance would trample private property rights and extend the federal government's powers under the Clean Water Act beyond constitutional limits.

"The last thing any farmer needs is another federal mandate to follow," said Rehberg, a fifth-generation rancher. "The role of government is not unlimited. We don't need the federal government thinking for us, and we don't need the federal government to tell us how to take care of our irrigation ditches."

Environmentalists cheered Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) for crossing party lines to vote in favor of Moran-Dingell. The Rehberg amendment would, in effect, "perpetuate confusion" found in current rules, Fitzpatrick said on the floor.

"I would suggest it's time to take a step forward and not a step backward," he said before urging colleagues to vote against the Rehberg rider.

Democrats on the floor today argued that Rehberg's amendment would have the unintended consequence of rolling back the 1993 exemption of prior converted cropland from Clean Water Act regulation.

"A lot of people in the farm community are going to be very upset if that goes through," Moran said.

Don Parrish, senior director of regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in an email that he did not buy the argument. He said the Farm Bureau supports the Rehberg provision.

In the email, Parrish wrote, "It is my understanding that the legislation freezes the regs and does not roll back any existing regulations."

The initial voice vote on the House floor went off with some confusion this morning, when the presiding officer declared that the amendment had passed. Rehberg requested a recorded vote, during which votes came up short.