From the Washington Examiner
Managing a caucus on a bill is hard work — especially when that caucus is the Republican Party and the bill in question covers the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chairwoman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee, defended the $30.01 billion Interior and Environment spending bill the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced to the floor last week against Democratic criticism that Republicans loaded it with 11 “poison pill” policy riders that handcuff President Obama’s climate and environmental agenda.
“It wasn’t just me. I was going to colleagues and saying, ‘What are your priorities here?’ And when you talk to folks who say, ‘Look, when it comes to funding for EPA, my answer is you shouldn’t give them a nickel. I’m so mad at them because of X, Y and Z.’ And this is where you get to the policy provisions where, again, the agency that is going outside their jurisdictional authority. How do you rein that in?,” the Alaska Republican told reporters
The bill includes provisions that would block or delay implementation of proposed EPA limits on carbon emissions from power plants, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate plan. It also calls for scuttling a rule expanding the agency’s jurisdiction over waterways, preventing the EPA from issuing a more stringent standard for ground-level ozone, or smog, and barring the Interior Department from listing the greater sage grouse, a bird found in 11 Western states, as an endangered species.
Comments