The Republican Congress has soundly rejected the Trump administration’s spending plans on energy and environmental issues lodged at the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Interior Department.
The $1.3 billion Omnibus spending bill passed this week to avoid another government shutdown goes in the opposite direction charted by the White House and its Office of Management and Budget under Mick Mulvaney.
At this writing, President Trump is threatening to veto the measure because it fails to offer a plan to rescue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or fund his border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He tweeted this morning, “I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded.”
The administration’s budget document revealed in February proposed major cuts for DOE, EPA and Interior. Instead, DOE and Interior get increases in programs Trump wanted to gut, and EPA’s budget remains about the same.
Trump wanted to kill outright DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, modeled on the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. The spending bill, which provides funds through September, gives ARPA-E a $47 million increased to $353 million. OMB also wanted to eviscerate DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, but Congress increased its allowance by 15 percent, for a total of $2.3 billion.
In a little-noticed portion of the omnibus spending bill, the House had included $120 million to revive the Yucca Mountain program for long-term, underground storage of spent nuclear fuel. The White House had requested $150 million for DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart the program, stalled for decades. The final measure dropped the Yucca Mountain funding.
Tarak Shah, who headed a science office at DOE in the Obama administration, told the online newsmagazine Vox that the omnibus spending bill is an “utter repudiation of the Trump budget.”
The White House proposed to cut EPA’s budget by a third. The omnibus plan funds the agency at $8.1 billion, about the current level. It includes a $600 million increase for the Clean Water and Drinking Water revolving fund for the states, for a total of $2.9 billion, and a $66 million increased in the $1.15 billion Superfund program.
Elgie Holstein, a strategic planner at the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “This budget deal shows that Congress understands the political danger of undermining EPA’s work to protect American families from pollution. President Trump and Administrator [Scott] Pruitt proposed huge cuts EPA, but Congress – responding to a backlash from people all over this country – said no.”
At Interior, the largest agencies – the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service – got funding increases in the omnibus bill. BLM would get $1.3 billion, a $79 million increase. NPS would see $3.2 billion, a $270 million increase, and FWS is in for $1.6 billion, up by $75 million.
The omnibus bill passed the Senate by a 65-32 bipartisan vote and the House by 256-167. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers. According to the National Archives, “Historically, Congress has overridden fewer than ten percent of all presidential vetoes.” But it may be the case that Trump is simply bluffing, as is he often does in order to make political points.
— Kennedy Maize