Source:  U.S. HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, 7/15/11

The House Appropriations Committee today approved the Fiscal Year 2012 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill. The legislation includes annual funding for the Department of the Interior, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), the Forest Service, and various independent and related agencies.

In total, the bill includes $27.5 billion in spending – a reduction of $2.1 billion below last year’s level and $3.8 billion below the President’s budget request. The legislation also cuts climate change programs by a total of $83 million – or 22% – from last year, and decreases land acquisition funding by $239 million – or 79%. In addition, the legislation also includes several provisions aimed at reining in out-of-control federal bureaucracies and overly burdensome regulations that harm American businesses and hinder economic recovery.

“This legislation is a great example of the hard but necessary work the Appropriations Committee is doing to get our fiscal house in order by cutting extraneous, duplicative and unnecessary spending. The cuts in this bill were not easy and they were not taken lightly, but they are responsible and necessary to move our country in the right direction,” House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers said. “In addition, the bill reins in out-of-control regulation at the EPA – the poster child for the Administration’s widespread regulatory overreach that is hurting nearly every sector of our recovering economy.”

“We are living at a time of record deficits and debt. If there’s one thing we should have learned from the last Congress, it’s that we can’t spend our way to economic recovery. At the end of the day, what this Committee is attempting to do in this bill is reduce spending, create more certainty in the marketplace, and promote an economic environment conducive to job growth,” Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson said.

For the text of the legislation considered today by the Appropriations Committee, please click here. 
For the bill report, please click here.