The chairman of the House subcommittee that funds U.S. EPA said he believes Congress will curb the agency's regulatory authority when it passes a funding bill for fiscal 2012.

In addition, the inclusion of conservation riders in the Senate's draft Interior Department-EPA appropriations bill makes a stronger case for the House to include its own policy provisions in a final funding bill, said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).

"There will be EPA riders or there won't be a bill," he told E&ENews PM this afternoon.

Simpson added that while he has not met with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), his appropriations counterpart in the Senate, to discuss riders, he is confident Congress will be able to pass a bill by the time current funding expires on Nov. 18.

"We'll get it done by then," Simpson said. "I'm sure there will be some riders. Well, hell, they've got some riders in theirs."

Those riders include a Montana senator's proposal to designate some 700,000 acres of new wilderness and mandate new logging and a proposal to establish the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as proposed in a bill by Reed.

Simpson said he has not taken a position on the language by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to mandate new wilderness and forest restoration in Montana.

But he said he was fairly certain the House would be standing firm on proposals to hamstring EPA's ability to rein in pollutants.

Simpson said he would be also be personally fighting to maintain a rider he tacked onto the House bill that prevents the Obama administration from taking steps to reduce sheep grazing on public lands.

The issue stems from a move by the Payette National Forest in Idaho to prevent bighorn sheep from contracting a potentially devastating form of pneumonia from domestic sheep.

The rider has drawn fire from wildlife advocates.

"What Simpson is proposing basically undermines years of work to ensure that the bighorn sheep can survive in the long run," said Bobby McEnaney, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, adding that massive die-offs of bighorns have occurred in multiple Western states. "Compromises have been put forth to make sure the ranchers and permittees have an opportunity to graze in the region."