Summary of 2016 Interior Appropriations bill

June 22, 2015
Press Release

The 2016 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill would place the health and safety of the American people at risk by slashing critical funding for drinking water and sanitary sewer infrastructure, climate change, and environmental enforcement.  Ideological policy riders continue the assault on our environment by undermining the Administration’s ability to keep our land, water, and air clean and protect threatened species.

 

Highlights of 2016 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act

 

2016 bill:                                 $30.170 billion                                               

2016 budget request:              $32.208 billion           

2015 enacted:                         $30.416 billion

 

The 2016 Interior Appropriations bill would provide:

  • $7.43 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is $750 million less than the 2015 enacted level and $1.17 billion less than the President’s budget request.
    • $1.02 billion for the Clean Water Fund, which is $431 million less than the 2015 enacted level and $98 million less than President’s budget request.
    • $757 million for the Safe Drinking Water Fund, which is $150 million less than the 2015 enacted level and $429 million less than the President’s budget request. 
  • $1.15 billion for the Bureau of Land Management, which is $30 million more than the 2015 enacted level and $80 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $1.43 billion for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is $8 million less than the 2015 enacted level and $144 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $2.67 billion for the National Park Service, which is $53 million more than the 2015 enacted level and $381 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $2.77 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is $165 million more than the 2015 enacted level and $159 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $3.59 billion for Wildland Fire Management, which includes the 10-year average for fire costs.  The bill does not accept the Administration’s request to fund 30% of firefighting costs through the existing disaster relief budget cap.
  • $2.36 billion for the U.S. Forest Service (non-fire), which is $64 million less than the 2015 enacted level and $216 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $4.79 billion for the Indian Health Service, which is $145 million more than the 2015 enacted level and $315 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $146 million each for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is equal to the 2015 enacted levels and $2 million less than the President’s budget request.
  • $452 million in discretionary appropriations for Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), which in the past has been funded through mandatory spending.

 

The bill includes numerous policy riders, including:

  • Prohibiting the use of funds for proposing, finalizing, implementing or enforcing new standards for existing and new sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Prohibiting EPA from ensuring mining companies are financially capable of cleaning up pollution that operations cause to the land and water.
  • Prohibiting the Fish and Wildlife Service from including the Sage Grouse on the Endangered Species list.
  • Prohibiting EPA from changing the way discharge of fill material is regulated.
  • Prohibiting EPA from finalizing proposed regulation clarifying the Federal jurisdiction of navigable waters under the Clean Water Act.
  • Prohibiting EPA from enforcing rule on safe removal and renovation of lead paint.
  • Prohibiting funding for the development or revisions of regulations regarding imported ivory.

 

The bill includes the following new policy riders:

  • Prohibiting funding to update and revise EPA’s Ozone Standard.
  • Prohibiting funding to implement, administer, or enforce the final rule on Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) on Federal and Indian Lands.
  • Prohibiting the use of funds to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the proposed rule on “Federal Acknowledgement of American Indian Tribes”
  • Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to reissue final rules to delist wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes region that were overturned by a federal court and exempts those reissued rules from judicial review.
  • Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to amend the interim rule on the northern long-eared bat to allow incidental take of bats for activities done in accordance with habitat conservation measures and to reopen the comment period on the interim rule for not less than 90 days.
  • Requiring the EPA to treat air emissions from forest biomass activities as non-contributors of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  • Prohibiting funding to promulgate any rule or guidance that changes the status of any hydrofluorocarbon used as a refrigerant or in foam blowing agents, applications, or uses.

 

114th Congress