The House of Representatives recently advanced the Fiscal Year 2019 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, HR 6147.
The $35.3 billion proposal includes funding for operating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fighting wildfires on public lands, operating the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institutions, making improvements to drinking water systems and accelerating the clean-up of nuclear Superfund sites.
“The proposal funded many worthwhile programs and requires the EPA to refocus on its core mission while limiting bureaucratic overreach another step in the process of reining in our federal spending. I’m hopeful the Senate consider this bill and keep the adjustments to get federal spending in check,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Adams/York/Cumberland/Dauphin counties) said.
Perry offered an amendment adopted before the bill’s advancement to prevent the EPA from using funds for section 115 of the Clean Air Act, which concerns air pollution originating in the United States that is shown to have impacts in other countries. The amendment aims to prevent the EPA from mandating state emissions levels, as Section 115 allowed it to do if it finds that U.S. emissions endanger a foreign nation or a nation that has a reciprocal agreement to prevent or control the emissions in their own nation.
“If the U.S. government wants to pursue such a policy—one that is constitutionally suspect—it should be done through explicit congressional delegation of authority on a case-by-case basis, rather than delegated to nonelected EPA bureaucrats,” Perry said. “The amendment’s just part of rolling back the era of detrimental aggressive ‘big government’ regulations and re-establishing local control of environmental standards for the benefit of our communities.”
The proposal now heads to the Senate for further consideration.