House GOP Passes Bill to Cut Environmental Protection Agency Budget by 40% – By Yuval Rosenberg (The Fiscal Times) / Nov 3, 2023
The Republican-led House on Friday approved another 2024 appropriations bill, passing legislation that would slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by nearly 40%.
The funding bill covering the Department of Interior, Environment and Related Agencies passed by a 213-203 vote that fell almost entirely along party lines. Three Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro of New York — voted against it, while Democrat Vicente Gonzalez of Texas voted for it.
The GOP plan would provide 35% less in total funding than in fiscal 2023 and reportedly would provide the Environmental Protection Agency with its smallest budget in three decades, about $6.2 billion. It would cut 39%, or nearly $4 billion, from the EPA’s 2023 funding and would provide nearly $6 billion less for the agency than President Joe Biden requested in his budget.
“In addition to the top-line EPA cuts, the GOP bill would also rescind provisions from the climate, tax and health care bill that Democrats passed last year,” The Hill notes. “It targets funding aimed at helping underserved communities combat climate change and pollution. It additionally seeks to defund the EPA’s efforts to curtail toxic pollution and planet-warming emissions, preventing the agency from using funding to enforce its rules on power plants.”
