The House passed a portion of its fiscal 2019 spending bills on Thursday in a bill that gave the Environmental Protection Agency a slight haircut and ignored the White House’s demands for deeper cuts.
The spending bill passed the House floor in a party-line vote of 217-199. The EPA and Interior Department funding portions came in at $35.3 billion combined.
EPA’s $7.96 billion in funding is just $100 million below 2018 levels. Nevertheless, it is over $2 billion more than Trump had requested.
The Interior Department would get $13 billion, about the same as in the current year.
The White House said Wednesday in a formal statement of administration policy that it thought the spending cuts were too low. Trump wanted EPA’s budget cut by $2.2 billion. The House bill also didn’t follow the White House budget in keeping the Interior Department over $2 billion higher than what was requested.
Despite keeping the Interior and environment spending relatively intact, the House bill was not short on riders in support of Trump’s deregulation agenda.
“The bill also makes strides to rein in harmful regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency,” the summary read. One of the principal targets is EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule, which expanded the agency’s authority to regulate rivers and streams. Critics charged that the Obama-era rule would put every ditch, culvert and puddle under EPA jurisdiction.
The bill provides funding for the repeal of WOTUS.
