The House subpanel chairman in charge of funding the Interior Department and U.S. EPA said this afternoon he does not expect his panel's 2013 spending bill to reach the chamber's floor before the end of summer, setting up a potential deluge of amendments when the Appropriations Committee considers the measure.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, said there won't be enough time on the House calendar to accommodate all 12 of the appropriations bills, especially in light of the number of amendments members have offered under the chamber's open floor debate rule.

Simpson said he is planning to include fewer policy riders in the EPA-Interior bill, urging members instead to offer their proposals at the committee markup. But he did not discuss the status of specific riders.

Simpson's take is a more candid admission of the pressures facing House Republicans than Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) offered today, when he assured Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) that there would be time to bring up each appropriations bill individually. "The commitment that we have is still to bring these bills forward under a very challenging fiscal time in our country," Cantor said on the floor.

If the bill does not reach the floor, it will likely be negotiated directly with the Senate as part of a final fiscal 2013 spending package.

Simpson's comments came just as the House approved a $51.1 billion bill for the Commerce and Justice departments and science programs, its first appropriations bill of the year (see related story). Simpson said he believes the energy and water appropriations bill, which was recently reported from committee, could be the next to reach the chamber floor.

"My bill will never get to the floor; there's not enough days on the calendar," he said, adding that he expects his legislation to be released and marked up in June. "If we're going to have an open process, we need to be more restrained with our amendments."

Simpson did not indicate whether the bill would address EPA regulations of greenhouse gases or other air pollutants, management of public lands, or endangered species issues. But ultimately, he said, it may be a moot point.

"If we don't put it in the bill, there will be an amendment to put it in the bill. If we do put it in the bill, there will be an amendment to take it out," he said. "So it doesn't matter. There's going to be controversy surrounding them."

The fiscal 2012 Interior-EPA bill included a prohibition on EPA using funds to implement greenhouse gas rules and a new mercury rule for power plants, and a host of other environmental restrictions. The full House spent several days considering hundreds of other such riders before leadership pulled the bill from the floor immediately before August recess. They never returned to debate on the bill.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) today in an interview with reporters gave himself credit for scuttling the bill. Dicks won one of the few Democratic victories when he had an amendment accepted that scrapped the bill's prohibition on listing new species under the Endangered Species Act.

"I defeated them on the Endangered Species Act amendment with 30 of their guys, and they pulled their bill," he said.

Among the expected policy riders this year is a proposal by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) to exempt Interior's proposed delisting of the gray wolf in her state from environmental lawsuits, as urged by Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R). Lummis yesterday did not indicate whether she expects the provision to be included in the bill.

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) yesterday said he again plans to propose a rider that would prevent the agency from listing as endangered a small southwestern lizard; he warns that such a listing would block oil production.

Very few of the riders have managed to survive the conference with the Senate, though the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending bill included measures transferring air permitting authority for Arctic oil and gas drilling from EPA to Interior, as well as Simpson's proposal to limit bighorn sheep conservation measures on federal lands.

Policy riders aside, Simpson said his subcommittee has much less money to work with compared with last year, meaning several Interior and EPA programs and offices could see additional belt-tightening.

"It's down about $1.3 billion from last year," Simpson said, referring to the allocation he received from House leaders.

Reporters Jean Chemnick and Elana Schor contributed.