For the second year in a row, House Republicans have zeroed out almost all funding for climate change in the foreign operations budget.

The 2013 funding measure eliminates millions of dollars in climate aid from President Obama's proposed budget while taking a hatchet to money for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The bill passed the House Foreign Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee by a voice vote with no amendments yesterday. Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas) hailed the bill for saving taxpayer dollars by focusing on national security efforts, eliminating 10 programs and not providing new dollars to programs if existing funds go unused.

In all, the $48 billion spending bill cuts State Department and foreign aid spending by more than $5 billion from President Obama's request. That's a 12 percent cut from the $54.71 billion Obama had requested.

"In this difficult climate, our foreign aid must be based on American principles, looks out for American interests and wisely invests American dollars. This bill assesses our foreign aid based on our national security and only supports programs that work. We will hold accountable those who cannot live up to our constituents' expectations," Granger said in a statement.

In addition to prohibiting any U.S. funds from going to the U.N. bodies overseeing climate change negotiations or its scientific research body, the bill makes no mention of Climate Investment Funds. Those are a series of World Bank programs that combine money from several industrialized countries to leverage billions of dollars to help poor countries adapt to climate change, protect tropical forests and develop clean energy technologies.

In 2011, Congress put about $235 million toward those programs, a cut from $375 million in fiscal 2010. The money is a key ingredient in the United States' annual international commitment to global climate change programs.

Hope for some aid from the Senate

The bill more or less flatlines the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) budgets from which much of the U.S. bilateral climate assistance comes. But it also makes no specific mention of USAID's Global Climate Change Initiative, leading analysts to conjecture that the agency could still spend its money on planned disaster resilience projects.

Before that happens, though, environmental activists said they expect a fight and major assistance from Senate Democrats. Last year the House Foreign Affairs panel made similar cuts, much of which were restored by the Senate.

"This is hardly the end of the story," said David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America. "I'm quite optimistic. I think that the Senate has understood and will continue to understand these pieces of financing and the ways in which they're important for a range of reasons to the United States."

Rep. Nita Lowey (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, also criticized many of the cuts to diplomacy and foreign assistance, saying in a statement that "the allocation that has been given to these important programs would result in cuts to foreign aid and diplomacy that will not solve our budget woes, but will substantially weaken America's standing in the world and hamper our nation's ability to protect and promote our interests overseas."

She took aim in particular at the decision to zero out the climate investment funds, noting that one aimed at developing clean technology brings $4 to $5 of additional investment for every $1 the United States contributes. "At a time when we are doing everything we can to make every dollar count, it is confusing to see significant cuts to the multilateral development banks, institutions that are the most effective at leveraging their U.S. contributions," she said.

Meanwhile, she argued, not giving USAID enough working capital "sets up the agency to fail."