Hill Heat

When the House Appropriations Committee considers a proposed $27.9 billion spending bill for the Interior Department, Forest Service and U.S. EPA this week, the debate will be more about gasoline prices than the merits of the bill itself.

Republicans plan on introducing amendments aimed at developing domestic resources of oil and gas, including the outer continental shelf (OCS), oil shale and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)

Tiahrt, the ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said Wednesday’s full committee markup will be all about energy.

“When it gets to the full committee it’s going to be a case about whether we pay above $4 for a gallon of gas or below $4,” he said.

Regardless of what happens in committee, Tiahrt said it is unlikely that the spending bill will ever make it to the House floor.

Tiahrt said he expects there may be a continuing resolution after the presidential election in November that will carry into the new administration, though Congress could pass some Defense-related spending bills, and even the Interior bill before then.

The subcommittee last week approved the spending bill by unanimous voice vote. Tiahrt said the subcommittee wanted to send a strong message to the full committee that they supported the funding proposal and should be treated separately from the energy debate that will ensue.

The only amendment considered by the subcommittee last week was one from Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) to lift a moratorium on exploring for oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf. The amendment would allow for exploration from 50 miles to 200 miles offshore and allow for oil and natural gas preleasing and leasing activities to begin on the OCS.

In 2006, the Minerals Management Service estimated that undiscovered, technically recoverable resources on the entire OCS totaled 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

“This is completely misleading,” subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) said last week of GOP efforts to open up the OCS, calling it a “red herring and desperate attempt” to open up more offshore areas when oil companies are barely using the areas that have leased now.

Noting that MMS also reports that 82 percent of natural gas reserves and 79 percent of its oil reserves in the OCS are in areas that are already open to drilling, Dicks said more focus should be on price speculation and other factors that affect the price of gasoline rather than just open more resources.

With the prospects low that any energy amendment introduced Wednesday would make it onto the House floor, let alone signed into law, observers say Wednesday’s debate will be more about getting the parties on the record about energy.

“With energy prices where they are, both parties are trying to present their prospective on what the government needs to be involved in responding to that,” said Lee Fuller, Independent Petroleum Association of America’s vice president for government relations. Interior and Forest Service

The $27.9 billion spending bill, more than $2 billion over President Bush’s request, would reverse proposed White House spending cuts for fiscal 2009, providing significant boosts in funding for national parks, fire suppression and wildlife refuges.

The bill includes $2.6 billion for the National Park Service, including a $158 million increase in funding for operational budgets at the parks, along with $175 million to jump-start an initiative to revitalize the deteriorating National Mall.

The Fish and Wildlife Service would get $1.4 billion. The National Wildlife Refuge system, an area of concern for the subcommittee’s leadership, would see its funding rise by $35 million to $469 million. The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geological Survey would see minor increases over their current budgets, with BLM getting a 0.5 percent increase over its current funding level to $1.013 billion and USGS seeing its budget rise to $1.05 billion.

Indian schools and social services are the biggest beneficiaries of the bill with a proposed $6 billion budget for the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a $350 million increase over the 2008 enacted levels.

For the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service, the spending bill restores almost $400 million in cuts proposed by the administration, providing an increase of $473 million for agency programs.

It also includes language that would prohibit the borrowing of funds from other agency priorities to fund wildfire suppression. Under the provision, no borrowing will be allowed unless the president submits a formal budget request to Congress to replace the funds. The request must be signed by the president before funds can be allocated.

Interior is concerned the rule would add an additional step to acquiring and replenishing funds. Another swing at royalty relief

The spending bill also carries Democratic language to address the flawed late-1990s deepwater oil and gas leases that could cost the federal government more than $14 billion.

The language seeks to ensure royalty payments from late 1990s Gulf of Mexico leases that currently allow royalty waivers regardless of energy prices. Deepwater leases Interior issued in 1998 and 1999 lack clauses – called “price thresholds” – that suspend the royalty waivers when prices exceed certain limits.

The provision from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) would prevent companies holding these leases from participating in future lease sales. The provision was also included in last year’s House-passed Interior spending bill, and similar measures appeared in other energy bills the House has approved but never made it to the president’s desk. $700M boost for EPA

The spending bill also would increase U.S. EPA’s budget by nearly $700 million.

The legislation would provide the agency with $7.8 billion, restoring funding for key water and air programs that were drastically cut in the Bush administration’s budget proposal.

Chief among those is the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a low-interest wastewater loan program that helps states construct water treatment facilities. The fund would receive $850 million in fiscal 2009 under the House bill, a nearly $300 million increase from the White House request of $555 million. The fiscal 2008 budget for the fund was $689 million.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle blasted the White House cut, calling the level of funding provided completely inadequate to deal with the nation’s wastewater and infrastructure needs.

The spending bill also would increase overall funding for science and technology from the $764 million requested by the White House to $793 million. Funding for environmental programs and management would rise $59 million.

Funding for Superfund cleanup would increase $20 million, and programs aimed at restoring and protecting prominent bodies of water would receive about $45 million more than in the Bush administration’s proposal.