APPROPRIATIONS:
White House veto threat led Senate Democrats to punt energy-water bill
Nick Juliano, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 19, 2014
A threatened White House veto led Democratic appropriators to punt a $34 billion energy and water spending bill today, adding to the pile of appropriations legislation stuck in limbo amid Republican attempts to force votes on controversial Obama administration policies ahead of the November elections.
The catalyst for today’s markup cancellation was a threatened amendment from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have undermined U.S. EPA’s recently unveiled rule to limit power sector greenhouse gas emissions. McConnell’s camp has not provided any more details on the amendment, but his aides insist it would be germane despite the fact that EPA is not funded by the energy and water bill that was set to be marked up this morning.
Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) both said they would welcome debate on controversial amendments but decided to pull the energy and water bill from this morning’s agenda after the White House intervened.
“Up until 7:30 last night, I was saying press on, press on,” Mikulski said this morning, as the committee prepared to mark up two other spending bills. “I knew it was going to be controversial; I was ready for controversy.”
Feinstein complained that McConnell’s amendment was out of place on the energy and water bill because it addressed a rule from EPA, which is funded by the separate Interior-environment appropriations bill, and because it amounted to a “thinly disguised” attempt to enact new authorizing legislation on an appropriations bill, which is typically not allowed under Senate rules.
“I can’t recall an amendment in the 21 years that I’ve been here that is so far outside the jurisdiction of this subcommittee — we don’t handle EPA,” Feinstein said this morning.
“The amendment was a bill killer,” she added. “If it didn’t lead to [the bill’s] defeat on the Senate floor, it would have led to a White House veto.”
Feinstein painted this morning’s cancellation as only a temporary delay, but she did not indicate when the markup could be rescheduled. It is difficult to imagine McConnell dropping his amendment, given the zeal with which the Republican leader criticizes the administration’s purported “war on coal” — an issue that carries especially high salience this year as he faces his most competitive re-election race in years in coal-dominated Kentucky.
The White House’s intervention and committee’s decision to cancel the energy and water markup also indicates that committee leaders and the administration feared they would have lost at least two of the panel’s Democrats on the vote, which would have been enough for passage in the committee, where Democrats hold a 16-14 advantage.
The most likely candidates would be moderate Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, all of whom have criticized EPA’s climate rules as they face tough re-election contests in November. Their offices have not responded to repeated requests for comment since yesterday afternoon.
In addition to McConnell, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) had been planning to offer an amendment that would have blocked the Army Corps of Engineers from implementing a new rule to expand the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.
Mikulski noted that the energy and water bill is now one of the committee’s “ugly stepsisters” because it is a magnet for controversial Republican amendments. It joins the Interior-environment bill, which funds EPA and the Interior Department, among other agencies, and would attract untold numbers of controversial amendments covering virtually everything those agencies do. The others are the labor-health spending bill, which draws amendments seeking to defund the Affordable Care Act, and the financial services bill, which could be a vehicle for amendments related to the IRS scandal involving alleged targeting of political groups, among other issues.
Republicans portrayed the canceled markup as yet another example of the upper chamber’s Democratic leadership trying to avoid tough votes and impose a “gag order” on the chamber. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the ranking member on energy and water, said punting legislation to avoid amendment votes contradicts the whole purpose of the Senate — to allow for extended debate of policy issues. He said both parties should be fed up at the inability to vote on important matters, noting that Republicans have only received eight amendment votes on the Senate floor in the last year, while Democrats only secured seven votes.
“My question is why would you put up with that?” Alexander chided his Democratic colleagues.
McConnell addressed the delay on the floor this morning, saying the delay further undermines criticisms aired by moderates in the other party.
“The Senate Democrat leadership’s latest action is yet another example of the lengths they’ll go to defend the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda — an agenda Washington Democrats seem willing to protect at all costs, even when supposedly pro-energy Senate Democrats try to make us think otherwise,” he said.
Twitter: @nickjuliano | Email: njuliano@eenews.net
Tags: energy, policy, water
