What's inside the Senate Interior approps bill
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Let's dive into some policy and notes from the Interior-EPA spending measure that Senate appropriators advanced last week.
The big picture: The Senate's bipartisan proposal contrasts starkly with the House bill, which is loaded with spending cuts and policy riders.
⛏️ Copper collab: Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Manchin got an amendment to the bill report that could lead to USGS adding copper to its list of "critical minerals."
- The designation would open up avenues for copper projects to get IRA funding and other federal dollars.
- Specifically, the amendment directs USGS to "explore the inclusion" of materials from DOE's separate "critical materials" list — which includes copper.
- This mirrors legislation that's already advanced through House Natural Resources.
☢️ Waste not: Senate appropriators have responded to nuclear observers' calls for EPA to develop new standards governing the safe disposal of nuclear waste.
- The bill includes $250,000 that would be used to develop "a new, generic, technology-neutral protection standard that is informed by modern, international practices" for future high-level nuclear waste storage sites.
- Environmentalists have argued that before a site for a repository is chosen, EPA must develop new health and safety criteria.
- The existing agency standards have been in place for decades and badly need updating, the American Nuclear Society said in a report last year.
💵 Divergences: The Senate bill proposes to slightly boost EPA's budget to $9.3 billion, compared with the nearly $2 billion cut House appropriators are seeking.
- But think of it this way: No matter what, EPA won't hit the $10.1 billion mark it got in fiscal 2023.
- After last year's $1 billion cut, Senate appropriators are essentially trying to get the agency's annual budget back to where it was in fiscal 2021.
- The agency got a massive, separate influx of cash from the IRA, but it shows how EPA gets a target on its back when lawmakers seek fiscal austerity.
What's next: Senate appropriators plan to take up their energy-water spending bill Thursday morning.
- House GOP leaders had to pull their version of that bill from the floor last week after disputes about amendments and spending levels.
- We're probably headed for a CR in the short term and then some rough negotiations, especially after Senate appropriators' agreement to stick $34.5 billion in emergency spending — exceeding the debt limit levels — on their fiscal 2025 bills.
