Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 5538, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2017, by a 231-196 vote. Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) released the following statement:
“Executive overreach from this Administration is in overdrive as the President’s second term nears an end. They’ve prioritized their regulatory regime over the American people. With that, there is a need for Congress to reassert the power of the purse. Through this legislation we limit the seemingly endless list of regulatory attacks on domestic natural resource development.”
H.R. 5538 includes policies and funding limitations to:
Prohibit funds for the implementation of the Well Control Rule and Bureau of Land Management methane rule
Prohibit the use of funds to implement or enforce the final hydraulic fracturing rule on federal and Indian lands
Prevent funds from implementing the Administration’s Arctic Rule
Prohibit funds to be used to remove 3 Arctic Sales from the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed Program
Prevent funds from being used to update existing Bureau of Ocean Energy Management regulations on financial assurance
Address federal management issues of critical water resources in California to mitigate the impacts of the prolonged, natural and man-made drought so that communities receive the water they desperately need after years of restricted water deliveries
Prohibit funding from being used to implement the Obama Administration’s unauthorized National Ocean Policy
Prohibit funds from being used to designate a National Marine Monument in federal waters through presidential proclamation
Limit duplicative and costly permit inspection regulations with respect to the export of squid, octopus and cuttlefish products
Prohibit funds made available by this Act may be used to make a Presidential declaration by public proclamation of a national monument in certain counties in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Maine
Redirect funds from EPA bureaucracy to the Forest Service Hazardous Fuels account to prevent dangerous wildfires
Remove funds from the EPA bureaucracy, and place them into the US Forest Service’s Forest and Rangeland Research Account, which funds the Forest Products Laboratory and Forest Inventory and Analysis among other programs
Prohibit funds for the Fish and Wildlife Service to continue to prohibit tubing, waterskiing and wake boarding in an area on Lake Havasu
Prohibit funds to be used to implement a final plan to designate areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as wilderness as the President’s proposal violates the law in an attempt to forever close off the land to potential development
Prohibit funds to be used to implement a final rule by the Fish and Wildlife Service and a proposed rule from the National Park Service in order to restore authority to the State of Alaska to manage fish and wildlife
Prevent the listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken and the Greater Sage-Grouse under the Endangered Species Act
Prohibit the implementation of federal land use plans for Greater Sage-Grouse that are inconsistent with state conservation plans
Remove unnecessary Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf
Prohibit the use of funds to treat any Gray Wolf in the 48 contiguous states as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act after June 13, 2017
Remove federal protections for the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse under the Endangered Species Act
Prohibit the use of funds to implement or enforce the threatened species listing of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse
Remove federal protections for the Mexican Wolf under the Endangered Species Act and prevent the expansion of the species habitat outside of its historic range
Prohibit the use of funds to implement or enforce the threatened species or endangered species listing of any plant or wildlife that has not undergone a periodic 5 year review
