When the House GOP targets EPA and Interior, clean-energy and conservation take a hit.

House Republican appropriators unveiled their fiscal 2026 funding legislation for the Interior Department and EPA, with steep cuts proposed for both agencies.

The bill would approve about $38 billion for agencies under its purview, nearly $3 billion below the fiscal 2025 amount. Interior would get about $14.8 billion and EPA would be funded at $7 billion, a 23 percent cut for the environment agency.

The legislation is, however, more generous than the president’s budget request. The bill would appropriate about $9.2 billion above what the White House requested.

The Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee will meet Tuesday to mark up the bill as lawmakers race to fund the government before the Sept. 30 deadline. Congress did not pass final appropriations bills last year, instead leaning on continuing resolutions.

“As Congress works to rein in unnecessary spending and restore fiscal responsibility, the House Appropriations Committee remains committed to ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly and efficiently,” Interior and Environment Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said in a statement.

“The Fiscal Year 2026 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act does just that by right-sizing federal agencies, promoting domestic energy and mineral production, and reversing harmful Biden-era policies.”

Democrats, however, pounced on the bill’s cuts for EPA and Interior, suggesting that a bipartisan agreement is still a long way away.

“House Republicans are once again pushing an agenda that accelerates the climate crisis, upends our National Parks system, and leaves local communities to fend for themselves — all while undermining the power of the Appropriations Committee and of Congress,” Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), the subcommittee ranking member, said in a statement.

“Instead of correcting course, the bill released today delivers more of the same: it cuts water infrastructure funding, slashes EPA programs, and wipes out environmental justice and climate initiatives.”

The bill contains troves of policy riders, mostly aimed at rolling back Biden-era environmental actions and blocking funding for culture war issues like diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental justice.

Interior bureaus slashed

The individual Interior Department bureaus would get less than their current funding levels but more than the Trump administration budget proposal called for.

The House bill’s $1.6 billion for the Fish and Wildlife Service, for instance, is $109 million below the fiscal 2025 enacted level but $430 million above President Donald Trump’s budget request.

In a similar vein, the $3.1 billion proposed for the National Park Service is $213 million below the fiscal 2025 level but $1 billion above Trump’s request.

In a few cases, the bill would save programs that the White House sought to kill. The legislation, for instance, offers a $5 million lifeline to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a cut from previous years but not the elimination Trump wants.

The Republican-authored House bill targets a number of familiar Democratic priorities, including one dear to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The bill would eliminate $90 million in National Park Service funding allocated this year for the Presidio Trust in Pelosi’s hometown of San Francisco.

The bill also includes myriad familiar policy riders, including a ban on listing the greater sage grouse as well as a handful of Texas freshwater mussels under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service would be required to reissue a rule delisting the gray wolf.

The FWS would be blocked from implementing prior decisions that listed the northern long-eared bat as endangered and the wolverine as threatened, and the agency would be stopped from reintroducing grizzly bears into the North Cascades region of Washington state.

“House Republicans are once again waging war on America’s wildlife in yet another giveaway to their industry allies,” said Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The bill also ventures into broader culture-related areas. It prohibits funding for “diversity, equity, and inclusion training or implementation” as well as anything that “promotes or advances Critical Race Theory or any concept associated with Critical Race Theory.” The legislation does not provide a definition of critical race theory.

The bill would prohibit the use of National Park Service funds to “provide housing to an alien without lawful status.” It would also prohibit spending money on the controversial 1,200-megawatt Lava Ridge Wind Project proposed for Bureau of Land Management property in Idaho pending further Interior Department review.

EPA downsizing

The House spending bill would slice deep into EPA’s budget, although not as much as the White House’s proposed cuts for the agency.

EPA would receive roughly $7 billion from the legislation in fiscal 2026, about a $2.1 billion or 23 percent decrease from its enacted funding this year.

Trump planned more dramatic downsizing for the agency as part of his fiscal blueprint, slating $4.2 billion for EPA, which would cut more than half of its annual budget.

The agency is already becoming much smaller during the second Trump administration. Hundreds of employees are leaving EPA, taking the president’s “deferred resignation” offer, while those who remain brace for an expected reduction in force, otherwise known as layoffs.

EPA’s support of state environmental regulators would take a hit under the bill. The agency’s State and Tribal Assistance Grants would be marked at $3.7 billion, a $679.8 million or 15.5 percent cut from fiscal 2025 levels.

That sum includes $2.1 billion for the agency’s Clean Water and Drinking Water state revolving funds, which Trump proposed to eliminate almost in their entirety in his plan. That is still $662 million below current levels, Democratic lawmakers noted in their bill summary.

House Republicans have other cuts for EPA programs. Their legislation would provide $2.27 billion for the agency’s Environmental and Programs Management account, which would be a $922.9 million cut.

The bill would mirror the White House’s budget request for Superfund, EPA’s program for cleaning up contaminated sites, at nearly $283 million. It’s roughly half of the $538 million Superfund received from appropriations last fiscal year, but $1.6 billion in revenue available from reinstated industry taxes is expected to keep the program’s funding at roughly the same level.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board would also continue operations with an $8.2 million budget. It’s a $6.2 million cut from last year but would keep it alive despite the Office of Management and Budget’s request to cancel the small investigatory agency.

House appropriators did rebuff the White House’s call to zero out the popular Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program, which hands out money to retool or replace school buses and other diesel-fueled equipment with newer, lower-polluting alternatives.

Instead, the program would get the same $90 million that it’s receiving this year. Targeted Airshed grants, aimed at helping areas address smog or soot pollution, would similarly be level-funded at $67.8 million.

The bill also features a string of policy riders intended to halt implementation of major Biden-era Clean Air Act rules, all of which the Trump administration intends to revisit or repeal.

Those include stronger tailpipe regulations on cars and trucks; greenhouse gas emission requirements for many fossil fuel power plants; a stronger annual limit on airborne soot exposure; and the latest “good neighbor” plan intended to limit smog-forming pollution that crosses state lines.

Other EPA rules are targeted as well. The legislation would bar funds for implementing the agency’s draft risk assessment on using PFOA and PFOS “forever chemicals” in sewage sludge fertilizer as well as enforcing a Biden administration regulation for stopping water pollution under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.

The Senate has yet to release its Interior-EPA bill but is proceeding with fiscal 2026 bills on a bipartisan basis, setting up a clash between the chambers and the White House. Congress is all but certain to need a stopgap funding bill to prevent a shutdown.

https://www.eenews.net/articles/house-releases-interior-epa-spending-bill-with-deep-cuts/