House leadership has yanked a controversial bill from the floor schedule that would have funded U.S. EPA and the Interior Department for fiscal 2012, trimming both the agencies' budgets and their regulatory authorities.

The decision comes after congressional and White House negotiators reached an agreement over the weekend that combines an increase to the national debt limit with more than $900 billion in discretionary spending cuts. The House will vote on the bill later today, and Interior and Environmental Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said it will adjourn for its annual monthlong August recess soon after.

"We're out of here as soon as we pass a debt limit," he said.

Simpson said he was not sure whether his subcommittee's bill (H.R. 2584) would receive a vote when Congress returns in September but that he expected it to eventually be combined with several other domestic bills and passed as an omnibus measure.

"So I suspect whether they bring it up for further debate and amendment is kind of academic," he said. "It will end up being in the omnibus is my guess."

Ryan Nickel, minority spokesman for the Appropriations Committee, said it appears unlikely the Interior-EPA bill will be taken back up in September and that the House instead will begin work on an omnibus funding package or a stopgap continuing resolution.

"We know they're done," he said of the Republican work on the bill. "It looks like people will rush for the doors this evening."

In the likely event that the House does not pass the bill as a stand-alone, Simpson said House GOP members of the conference committee would negotiate for a final bill that looks as much as possible like his subcommittee's bill, including its funding levels and policy provisions.

But Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), Simpson's Democratic counterpart on the subcommittee, predicted the House bill's provisions would be dead on arrival in the Senate.

Debt deal effects

Simpson said the debt limit would likely have little effect on funding levels for Interior and EPA in fiscal 2012. The debt deal actually calls for slightly more discretionary spending than House Republicans approved in their fiscal 2012 budget, but it does not specify what programs should receive the extra funds.

"There's nothing in there that addresses each agency or each appropriation bill," he said.

Moran, who opposes the debt ceiling bill, said the additional funding it provides relative to the House budget was negligible -- a maximum of $40 billion for all federal programs, depending on the estimates -- and would be unlikely to go to environmental programs.

"I don't think EPA is going to get the money it needs anyway," Moran said. "I just don't think it's going to make a difference."

He noted that the Democratic-controlled Senate had been expected to approve more funding than will now be allowed under the spending cap, so the final fiscal 2012 funding levels are likely to be lower than they otherwise would have been.

He also said that the debt ceiling deal would have implications for discretionary spending down the road, including for environmental programs. "In the short term, this is going to save another one of these self-created crises. In the long term, this is going to come back to bite us," he said.

Other Democrats said the debt deal means the chambers won't have to squabble over total spending levels or worry about a government shutdown but will still have to agree on how to allocate the funding and whether to allow anti-environmental riders.

The compromise essentially "deems" a budget resolution passed for fiscal 2012 and 2013, setting overall discretionary spending at $1.043 trillion and $1.047 trillion, respectively, according to a memo from the Senate Democratic Policy & Communications Center.

"One important but overlooked element of the bipartisan debt limit compromise is that it greatly defuses the potential for intense budget showdowns over the next two years," the memo states.

The $1.043 trillion fiscal 2012 allocation proposed in the bipartisan debt deal is about $24 billion above what was proposed by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Nickel said.

"While the various Appropriations subcommittees will still need to reach agreement on how to meet their respective spending targets, and while it is always possible for congressional Republicans to try to hold up the FY12 spending bills over extraneous policy riders or other matters, the legislation significantly reduces the chances of a sequel to last spring's government shutdown drama," the memo states.