EPA Funding May Get Snarled in Campaign Brinkmanship

rough year. You know, it would make it even worse a government shutdown. Don't laugh. It could actually happen as early as October first, when the federal government's current fiscal year ends. Both chambers of Congress and both political parties within those chambers want to avoid this, and there's been a lot of action on federal spending bills in recent weeks,

especially in the House. Kelly Lunny covers environmental issues on Capitol Hill for Bloomberg Law, and she says the House bills authored by Democrats would infuse a tremendous amount of cash into the EPA and to other environmental agencies. They would also block a number of the Trump administration's policy initiatives like opening up the Atlantic for offshore oil drilling. But when Kelly spoke to us this week, she said,

it's pretty unlikely that the October first deadline will actually hold. Well. The short answer is, I think we will have a funded government by October first, but it will probably be a continuing Resolution, which means that the funding that agencies had will just carry over until the two chambers can come to an agreement. And part of that is because of the pandemic, delaying and sort of upending the appropriations process. Having said that, in non pandemic years this often happens.

The two Houses can't necessarily reconcile their versions of spending bills for agencies, so they tend to sort of do what they can individually, and then once it gets close to September thirtieth, they kind of say, okay, well, we're just going to kind of go forward with what we've got the continuing resolution, moving the goalposts, I guess. So we're going to get to what could happen, you know, in November and December maybe beyond, but let's talk about

what's happening now. The House is still working on some of these bills that would fund the EPA and the Department of Interior. What's in these bills that have been moving so far and what would the funding levels be? So, as you mentioned, the House has been working on that. They the Full Appropriations Committee advanced to that bill earlier. I guess wait, today is Tuesday. I'm losing track of my days. They did that on Friday, aren't we all? Aren't we all? They did that on Friday? So are we?

I'm assuming, because you know this is a House bill and the Democrats control the House, that the EPA would probably be seeing a lot more funding than it has in previous years. Right, absolutely, So EPA is under this bill would get nine point three eight I think billion with a b, which is really a near record level of funding for the agency. It's about two billion more than what the administration wanted for the agency. Wow, because I remember covering a couple appropriations bills a few years

ago and they were around like seven ish billion. You know, who's counting a couple couple of million here, a couple million there. Now, of course that you know what the actual number will be A will probably be far off from that, But that's a that's a really good sign of like how much Democrats value the EPA and how much they mean resources they want to devote toward that absolutely, and you know, the Interior Department gets a funding boost

as well. It's certainly not as significant as what we're going to it is what they included for the EPA, but you know, the Democrats have expressed that, particularly in this time of the pandemic and the sort of higher profile than environmental justice issues have been getting the connections between pollution and climate change and communities, disadvantaged communities. They're really trying to reflect those priorities in some of these

larger spending levels if they've proposed. Now, I also want to talk about riders, because these bills, you know, don't just contain money for agencies. A lot of times they also feature these policy riders or amendments where you know, because these bills fund the federal government, they have to pass or else there's a government shut down, lawmakers like to attach these little provisions onto the bills and they could be pretty significant. Are there any really notable rids

this year that would affect the environment. So there's a couple in there. Some of them are sort of repeat performances. There's one that would block offshore drilling in areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts that are currently off limits to offshore drilling up you know, the Trump administration has expressed support for increasing offshore drilling, and that's something that many Democrats and a lot of Republicans, especially from those states, opposed,

So that's that's in the bill. There's language in there that would would bar any funds from being used to develop and do mining in what's known as the Boundary Waters Area, which is up in Minnesota, and that's sort of notable because there's been a lot of talk, particularly during the pandemic, about the United States being too reliant

on other countries for critical minerals. That's an area that is sort of critical mineral rich, but it's also one of you know, the most the country's most beautiful and pristine sort of natural watersheds, and there's a lot of support for protecting that area. And the Appropriations Subcommittee chairwoman

for Interior is Betty McCollum, who is from Minnesota. So that's in there, and you know, kind of stuff that you would typically expect from Democrats and probably just preventing the Trump administration from doing a lot of what they wanted what he wants to do. So let's talk about the Senate. You know, I think they based on my previous experience, they typically wait for the House to act and then they you know, take what the House sends

them and they do their own thing. But what's going on this year is the Senate moving forward with its own funding bills. So typically the two chambers do their own work on their own versions of the appropriations bills. Throughout the appropriations process, you know, they tend to sort of do their own thing, and then they sort of come together at the end to go forward with one

or the other. This year obviously, has been a little different because of the remote work and the accelerated schedule because they've been out so much due to the pandemic. The House has really sort of put the pedal to the metal in terms of trying to get their approches spending bills done. The Senate, however, is way far behind at this point. They haven't marked up any of their

spending bills. Part of that is because typically the Senate is a little slower, but they've been having some disagreements over Democrats potentially wanting to add language to some of these spending bills that relate to policing reform and other in the pandemic, and Republicans have wanted to keep those spending bills clean of any sort of potentially divisive language

related to those issues. And that happens a lot where you know, you have issues that have nothing to do with the environment that get added on to these appropriations bills and then they, you know, one chamber or another can't pass the funding bill for the EPA because of

something totally unrelated. Yes, and you know, members of both parties in both chambers, particularly in the Senate, have tried in the last couple of years to really keep those bills clean of those types of language for the for the reason that you articulated, which is it weighs it down.

You know, these bills have to pass, and the more you add to it, the heavier it becomes, and then it just collapses under its own weight, and then you've got a government shutdown, which is, you know, another disaster. So we're going to take a quick break here, but when we come back, we'll talk about why even though the bill would give the EPA a ton of money, the EPA itself is calling on the president to veto

stay tuned. Welcome back. We're talking with Bloomberg Laws Kelly Leney about how and weather Congress will fund the federal government's environmental agencies for the coming fiscal year. Leney says the EPA has inserted itself into this debate this year in an unusual way. This was sort of unusual, but EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler came out with a statement last week that basically said he would recommend that President Trump vito the Interior EPA spending Bill if it were to

reach him. Now if is in all caps there, because yeah, yeah, it's probably unlikely that that version gets to President Trump. There'd have to be some negotiations between Pelosi and McConnell, and it would by the time it got to the President's desk, it would wind up being very different exactly. So,

you know, there's things in there they don't like. I don't think they're thrilled with the increased funding levels for certain programs like what Well, they've created a separate this is sort of separate from the EPA's budget, but it's still part of that entire bill. They've created this fifteen billion again with a B emergency sort of supplemental critical infrastructure program that would sort of be divvied up among

the EPA and two of the Indian Affairs agencies. It's extra money that the Democrats want to give those agencies to tackle any sort of infrastructure issues that have that have worsened because of the pandemic. Fifteen billion dollars WHOA And obviously, you know, Republicans on the committee were not happy with the inclusion of that. Democrats argue it's necessary. The problem with that is that, you know, they want to put ten billion dollars into the drinking Water, safe

and Clean Water revolving state funds. It's a lot. It's a huge cash infusion for that. Yeah, and these these are funds where they're always really big, but I mean that would be taking big to a whole other level. But these these are federal funds that go toward giving water utilities really low cost loans to fix up like

pipes and water filtration systems and things like that. So it sounds like the administration and the head of the EPA, Andrew Wheeler, is saying, we don't want this money, we don't need it, and we have trouble spending it is that was that more or less what you're saying, Well, it's not. It's not really that, it's just that they don't like where the funds are sort of being targeted.

Got it. The other issue they have is with a separate water infrastructure loan program, not not the one that we've just been discussing, but there aren't any new funds for this water infrastructure program. It calls for a recision of funds from the last couple of fiscal years because they haven't spent it yet. They haven't spent it yet, so they're saying, we're not going to give you any

new money until you spend this. But a lot of the associations that represent these entities that get these loans are saying, this is really going to hurt, you know, these players that need the money. They're gonna have to reapply if they're not getting you know, they're gonna have to reapply essentially for money they've already received on projects

if you know, they're not going forward. So they're sort of playing a little bit of a political game with that program, and the administration isn't happy about that because they like that program and it is a bipartisan program that helps, you know, give some of these low cost loans to these to these players. So that's going to be an issue too, and that was specifically mentioned by

Wheeler in the veto threat. So got it. Okay, Well, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about, and this is we kind of alluded to this before, but let's talk about timing because you mentioned there's probably no way that that Congress and the administration are going to come together to pass something before the end of the fiscal year, which is, you know, the new fiscal year starts on October first. That's not happening. So it sounds like you think this is going to go past

the election in November? Is that right? Yeah? I think that's probably a safe bet. You know, the House will get probably all of their spending bills done before September thirtieth. They're really they're on track to do that. The Senate again hasn't you know, they've done behind the scenes work, but they haven't done any sort of public markup of bills, and they haven't got sort of officially started that process

for the for the public. Well, so this is where it gets weird, because if the appropriations in federal funding goes past the election, We're going to know who the next president will be, and we're going to know who will control the next Congress by the time this is still being hashed out, So the incentives there get really weird. Like let's let's say theoretically Democrats take back the Senate and Joe Biden wins the White House and they hold

on to the House. In that situation, would Democrats have an incentive just push this back into next year and into when you know, the we have the new president in the new Congress, or would they really want to cut a deal with Republicans before then. I don't know. I don't know how. It's like a game theory. I don't know how that would work. What do you think, Well, I don't think there's much interest in cutting a deal with Republicans, but I think, you know, that's probably in

the calculus right now. They're thinking, you know, if we just sort of do a continuing resolution in September, say from September to November, then we see who wins, and maybe we do another continuing to January. You know, that could buy them some more time to sort of like get the funding levels that they want in both chambers

for these agencies. But it's risky too. Well seeah, speaking of that, I mean, it's also risky because what if the president wins reelection and what if the Senate or the Republicans hold on to the Senate and who knows, maybe even take back the House. At that point, what would happen during the lame duck session there? Do you think?

I mean, Democrats would must have to be scrambling in that situation to strike a deal with Republicans before the next Congress takes office, right, Yeah, I mean that's true. If you know it's all Republican, then they sort of lose their the leverage they have, which at this point, the leverage they have is that they control the House. Their bills reflect the funding levels that they're prioritizing for these agencies. If they lose the House, then they lose

that leverage. It's risky. I mean, I think that, you know, it's highly probable that we will see a continuing resolution for September thirtieth. Whether that takes us through the election or whether that takes us to the end of the year, hard to say. So another worth the bottom line is what I'm hearing from you is that Thanksgiving and Christmas in the years are going to be very busy in Congress dealing with this issue. Sounds like I think that's right.

That's it for today's Pars Pavilion. If you want more of our coverage of Capitol Hill, check out our website newsdop Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website, once again is news dop Bloomberg Environment dot Com. Today's episode of Pars Pavilion was produced by myself and Josh Block with help from Anna yukonanof Pars Pavilion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagel. The music for today's episode is a Message by Jazarre and Thug by Brian Lawrence Bennett. They

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