Daily Archives: May 6, 2017

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Geof Koss and George Cahlink, E&E News reporters

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said this week, "Let's put '17 to an end. The discussion about '18 funding begins right now." Photo courtesy of C-SPAN.

Lawmakers said this week that the rejection of deep cuts sought by the Trump administration to federal energy and environmental agencies in this week's spending compromise could set the tone for less partisan fiscal 2018 spending deliberations.

The administration "highlighted what they felt were priorities; we took a look at them, and we made the determinations as we saw fit," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. EPA and the Interior Department. "And I think you will see 2018 approps kind of move forward in the same manner."

New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, Murkowski's Democratic counterpart atop the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, offered a similar assessment. "I think we now have a good baseline," he said yesterday.

"All the things the administration was advocating for, they don't look like they're really flying in this Congress," said Udall. "And I would say that's a bipartisan statement against those kinds of cuts."

President Trump is due to sign into law a $1.017 trillion fiscal 2017 omnibus spending bill that rejects his call for steep cuts to EPA, Department of Energy renewable energy research and various agencies' climate science programs.

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But despite talk of bipartisanship now and for the future, Udall said fiscal 2018 appropriations will be a "tougher lift" because of a late start.

"We're way behind," he said. "Normally, we'd be holding appropriations hearings in May and June, and we're only going to start, I think, in June for the very early ones."

Udall said he anticipates that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will appear before the panel after the White House releases its full budget request later this month.

Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, yesterday credited "all these marches" showing public support for EPA and other agencies.

"A lot of voices were heard, and I think those were reflected in the legislation," he told reporters yesterday.

Looking to the next round of spending talks, Carper added: "We're not going to take anything for granted."

"We're just going to continue the drumbeat and make sure members understand the consequences of the deep cuts proposed by President Trump," he said. "They were not thoughtful, and as it turns out, they were not supported by Democrats or Republicans, for the most part."

Democrats cheered fighting to keep out many policy riders from the omnibus. And while there were signs that the bill would include funding to restart the licensing process for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., those dollars were left out.

But a senior House Energy and Commerce Republican is confident the money will be included in the next spending bill. "It's basically really a 2018 issue," said Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy. "I'm not concerned."

There are signs that at least some partisan fights are likely to play out in upcoming spending bill talks. Citing concerns over the size of the package, conservatives lined up against the omnibus this week.

Nearly all 30 or so members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus voted against it, as did more half the much larger House Republican Study Committee.

Almost all the 18 votes in the Senate against the deal came from conservatives, among them Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Steve Daines of Montana and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

One of the House's conservative opponents, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), is already looking at options to cut spending in the fiscal 2018 bills using a decades-old provision he helped revive for this Congress.

The provision, known as the Holman Rule, would permit House floor amendments to target federal programs and agencies by cutting employees or eliminating their pay. The practice had been banned since the Reagan administration.

Griffith said he already has told EPA Administrator Pruitt he hopes to use the rule to shift some jobs at the agency. The lawmaker stressed that he is not pursuing "the whole destruction" of EPA but wants to make it more efficient and responsive.

"We need to get some of the people out of the alabaster towers in D.C. and move them into the field in places like Flint, Mich., where they can help people solve problems, not just punish them," said Griffith, an Energy and Commerce member who has been a critic of EPA regulations.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sounded a partisan tone by telling reporters yesterday that the main lesson learned from the omnibus negotiations is that Republicans need Democrats to pass spending bills.

She said the GOP had only 141 votes in favor of the omnibus bill, requiring it to have Democrats provide the rest needed to get to a 218 majority. Without Democratic support, Pelosi said, government would have faced a shutdown.

"There's a recognition of a strong number of Republicans who have a very easy comfort level in shutting government down. So that just empowers us," she added.

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Some optimism ahead of fiscal 2018 spending talks - E&E News

BY LINDSEY MCPHERSON AND ERIN MERSHON

House Republicans breathed a sigh of relief Thursday as they finally advanced their health care overhaul out of the chamber in a narrow 217-213 vote. No Democrats voted for the measure. They were joined by 20 Republicans who voted no as well.

Republicans clapped and cheered as they reached the 216 vote threshold needed for passage. The Democrats, convinced the vote would be politically hazardous to the GOPs health, chanted, Nah, nah, nah. Hey, hey, goodbye.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan cast a yes vote for the measure. It is rare for the speaker to vote on legislation.

The relief, however, is likely only temporary as the bill could come back to them in a few weeks or months significantly changed by the Senate.

The GOP is still likely a long ways away from achieving their top campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, as the politics and procedures of the Senate are expected to prove far more dicey than those in the House.

But for now, Republicans in the House are happy to have the health care issue off their plate so they can turn their attention to other matters, such as the fiscal 2018 appropriations process and a rewrite of the tax code.

The House technically cannot act on a tax bill until the health care legislation is signed into law, because they need to dispense with the fiscal 2017 budget reconciliation measure before moving onto a fiscal 2018 reconciliation measure that would be the vehicle for the tax rewrite. But they can begin to hold hearings and vet their policy ideas more thoroughly than they did on the health care bill.

The rush to finalize the health care bill catapulted House Republicans into a chaotic legislative process more characterized by fits and starts than a slow plod toward Thursdays passage. After early promises from President Donald Trump and Republican leaders that they would deliver first on a seven-year promise to repeal and replace the 2010 health law, Republicans have struggled at almost every turn.

Some members worked to disrupt even the initial budget resolution that kicked off the repeal process. The ultimate policies were released in rushed, late-night meetings just days ahead of marathon markup sessions. Ryans first attempt to pass the legislation ended in a spectacular failure for both him and Trump, as he pulled the bill from floor consideration when it became clear it didnt have the votes to pass.

Indeed, it was only late Wednesday, after more than a month of negotiations and various proposals to tweak the bill, that any member of leadership said they had secured the votes.

The proposal that leaders are crediting with pushing the bill across the finish line is an $8 billion infusion of money to help reduce premiums and out-of-pocket costs for some individuals with pre-existing conditions that are widely expected to rise under provisions of the overall bill. MichigansFred Upton offered the amendment, which switched him and MissourisBilly Long from a planned no vote to a yes.

Before the Upton amendment, which sought to bring on more moderates, roughly two dozen conservative House Freedom Caucus members flipped from a no to yes after securing their request to allow states to seek a waiver to opt out of certain insurance regulations Republicans claim have driven up the costs of insurance premiums.

The only Freedom Caucus member to ultimately vote against the bill was Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs. Liberty Caucus members Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Walter Jones of North Carolina, who frequently vote against leadership, also opposed the bill.

The waiver amendment was officially authored by New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur, co-chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group. It did not persuade many of his Tuesday colleagues who had opposed the plan. In fact, it moved many moderates who had previously committed to support the bill into the no or undecided categories.

The Upton amendment was designed to change the tide and appeared to do so.

Tuesday Group Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois,Elise Stefanik of New York, Brian Mast of Florida and John Faso of New York all had planned to vote yes before the MacArthur amendment and then, at least publicly, remained on the fence for the last week or so.

They all ultimately voted yes on the final bill, meaning the Upton amendment likely had some influence or they were planning to vote for it all along.

Still, several moderates felt more comfortable opposing the bill, which Democrats have signaled theyll use to attack vulnerable Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.Already Democratic campaign organizations have started running ads against lawmakers who supported the package in earlier stages.

Tuesday Group co-chairman Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and other group members Leonard Lance of New Jersey,Mike Coffman of Colorado, Dan Donovan of New York, Pat Meehan of Pennsylvania, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Jaime Herrera Beutlerand Dave Reichert of Washington, John Katko, Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania, Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey,Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania all voted no. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, Ohios Michael R. Turnerand David Joyce and Texas' Will Hurd voted no as well.

Other members who said they would have voted no on the version of the bill leadership pulled from the floor in the March ultimately voted yes, including Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, Rob Wittman of Virginia and Don Young of Alaska.

The package itself is a patchwork of provisions that repeal and replace parts of the 2010 health care law, including the laws current tax credits. New credits in the package would offer less help for most Americans who are not young or relatively wealthy. The bill slashes the Medicaid program by $880 billion over the next 10 years, among other changes. And it would make available some $115 billion for states, aimed at installing so-called high risk pools that Republicans say will help iron out high premiums.

An early analysis of the billfrom the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed that it would result in 24 million Americans becoming uninsured. CBO has not yet scored any of the later amendments to the package.

The next CBO score, however, looms large. The late changes could have a dramatic impact on the number of individuals insured and the Senate will not be able to take up the package until the CBO has scored it, under the rules of reconciliation.

Kerry Young and Rema Rahman contributed to this story.CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Christopher H. Smith as a member of the Tuesday Group.

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House Sends Health Care Hot Potato to Senate - Roll Call

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Geof Koss and George Cahlink, E&E News reporters

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said this week, "Let's put '17 to an end. The discussion about '18 funding begins right now." Photo courtesy of C-SPAN.

Lawmakers said this week that the rejection of deep cuts sought by the Trump administration to federal energy and environmental agencies in this week's spending compromise could set the tone for less partisan fiscal 2018 spending deliberations.

The administration "highlighted what they felt were priorities; we took a look at them, and we made the determinations as we saw fit," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. EPA and the Interior Department. "And I think you will see 2018 approps kind of move forward in the same manner."

New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, Murkowski's Democratic counterpart atop the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, offered a similar assessment. "I think we now have a good baseline," he said yesterday.

"All the things the administration was advocating for, they don't look like they're really flying in this Congress," said Udall. "And I would say that's a bipartisan statement against those kinds of cuts."

President Trump is due to sign into law a $1.017 trillion fiscal 2017 omnibus spending bill that rejects his call for steep cuts to EPA, Department of Energy renewable energy research and various agencies' climate science programs.

Advertisement

But despite talk of bipartisanship now and for the future, Udall said fiscal 2018 appropriations will be a "tougher lift" because of a late start.

"We're way behind," he said. "Normally, we'd be holding appropriations hearings in May and June, and we're only going to start, I think, in June for the very early ones."

Udall said he anticipates that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will appear before the panel after the White House releases its full budget request later this month.

Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, yesterday credited "all these marches" showing public support for EPA and other agencies.

"A lot of voices were heard, and I think those were reflected in the legislation," he told reporters yesterday.

Looking to the next round of spending talks, Carper added: "We're not going to take anything for granted."

"We're just going to continue the drumbeat and make sure members understand the consequences of the deep cuts proposed by President Trump," he said. "They were not thoughtful, and as it turns out, they were not supported by Democrats or Republicans, for the most part."

Democrats cheered fighting to keep out many policy riders from the omnibus. And while there were signs that the bill would include funding to restart the licensing process for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., those dollars were left out.

But a senior House Energy and Commerce Republican is confident the money will be included in the next spending bill. "It's basically really a 2018 issue," said Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy. "I'm not concerned."

There are signs that at least some partisan fights are likely to play out in upcoming spending bill talks. Citing concerns over the size of the package, conservatives lined up against the omnibus this week.

Nearly all 30 or so members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus voted against it, as did more half the much larger House Republican Study Committee.

Almost all the 18 votes in the Senate against the deal came from conservatives, among them Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Steve Daines of Montana and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

One of the House's conservative opponents, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), is already looking at options to cut spending in the fiscal 2018 bills using a decades-old provision he helped revive for this Congress.

The provision, known as the Holman Rule, would permit House floor amendments to target federal programs and agencies by cutting employees or eliminating their pay. The practice had been banned since the Reagan administration.

Griffith said he already has told EPA Administrator Pruitt he hopes to use the rule to shift some jobs at the agency. The lawmaker stressed that he is not pursuing "the whole destruction" of EPA but wants to make it more efficient and responsive.

"We need to get some of the people out of the alabaster towers in D.C. and move them into the field in places like Flint, Mich., where they can help people solve problems, not just punish them," said Griffith, an Energy and Commerce member who has been a critic of EPA regulations.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sounded a partisan tone by telling reporters yesterday that the main lesson learned from the omnibus negotiations is that Republicans need Democrats to pass spending bills.

She said the GOP had only 141 votes in favor of the omnibus bill, requiring it to have Democrats provide the rest needed to get to a 218 majority. Without Democratic support, Pelosi said, government would have faced a shutdown.

"There's a recognition of a strong number of Republicans who have a very easy comfort level in shutting government down. So that just empowers us," she added.

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With the addition of New York Reps. Dan Donovan and Peter King, 20 lawmakers have now endorsed the House GOP resolution that calls for action to combat climate change.

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The essential news for energy & environment professionals

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APPROPRIATIONS: Some optimism ahead of fiscal 2018 spending ... - E&E News