U.S. House slashes environmental funding, blocks air & water protections

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Environment America

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Having rejected multiple amendments to strike its most damaging provisions, today the U.S. House adopted its controversial spending bill, H.R. 5538, which cuts funding for the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and related agencies by $64 million from current levels. The first such spending bill to pass the House since 2009, the White House pledged to veto it on Monday.
 
Anna Aurilio, director of Environment America’s office in Washington, D.C., issued this statement:
 
“Before their long summer recess, Congress has passed legislation that threatens what makes summer so special: our parks, our water and our air. Despite the best efforts of House environmental champions, the final bill undoes the largest step the U.S. has ever taken to curb climate pollution, blocks safeguards for the rivers and streams that help supply drinking water to 1 in 3 Americans, and prevents the protection of some of our most prized natural landscapes. Laden with roughly 30 policy giveaways to polluters, the bill drastically underfunds the core government programs that make our air and water safe and our parks clean and accessible. This may be the first Interior and Environment spending bill to pass the House in seven years, but this pro-polluter monstrosity is nothing to be proud of.”