White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan did not mince words on July 7 when he described problems the Obama administration sees in the US House's fiscal 2017 US Department of the Interior appropriations bill.
"It includes short-sighted funding cuts that would undermine programs that could save significant money in the long run," he told reporters in a teleconference. "It also cuts funding for Native American healthcare programs by more than $300 million. Third, it would reduce partnership programs with states and local communities on programs such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund."
Donovan said HR 2822 would lock in sequestration and damaging budget cuts. House Republicans also are using the budget process "to jam through ideological riders which cut important programs," he charged. OMB's director reiterated a June 23 Administration Policy Statement's main point: US President Barack Obama's senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.
US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who joined Donovan in the teleconference, said the bill would have far-reaching consequences by attacking the agency through budget restrictions. "It would go even further by threatening the agency's core work on which there's general agreement," she warned. "Targeted cuts would undercut our work."
That apparently is what one of the bill's key supporters, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold D. Rogers (R-Ky.), intended. The measure takes steps to halt the administration's "harmful executive overreach" as it pursues a regulatory agenda "that would create an environment hostile to economic growth, that would put our energy independence at risk, and that could cost thousands of hard-working Americans their jobs," he said in June 25 remarks on the House floor.
Rogers said HR 2822 would cut EPA's budget by 9% from current funding levels. It also would prevent the agency from applying new greenhouse gas regulations for power plants, updating current ground-level ozone limits, and changing definitions of navigable waters and fill material, "all of which could spell disaster for our economy."
Hurting core activities
"Congress is trying to legislate science," McCarthy said, noting in the teleconference that House attacks on EPA's Science Advisory Board are particularly troubling. "EPA does not do its work alone. States and tribes do their share to implement water programs. These core activities would be hindered."
Donovan said, "It's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans are trying to hijack the appropriations process for unrelated proposals. This is not appropriate. We will not accept Republicans using it this way."
Democrats have said they're ready to negotiate, Donovan indicated. House and Senate Republicans should do the same instead of pushing matters toward manufactured deadline crises or a full government shutdown, he said.