(L to R) Senate appropriators Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) at the Capitol on Tuesday. Francis Chang / POLITICS
On Tuesday night, the Senate voted 70 to 25 to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that includes a small increase in spending on energy and environmental agencies.
While the Senate and House of Representatives still have days before final passage, the vote showed strong bipartisan support for the bill, even as conservative Republicans banded together to veto it.
An agreement to speed up the approval process could come as early as Wednesday, with lawmakers rushing to leave the nation’s capital before approaching winter weather could disrupt vacation plans.
But before the final vote, conservative Republicans called for a vote on a number of amendments to the bill, including a measure introduced by Senator Mike Brown (R-Ind.) that would eliminate all of the target marks in the package.
After bipartisan infrastructure bills and inflation-reducing bills, comprehensive plans are part of the Democrats’ energy and environmental agenda, even if they don’t get the spending increases and legislative deals they hoped for.
The Comprehensive Plan is the second FY2023 package to be spent directly or allocated by Congress since lawmakers resumed the practice. The package includes over 1000 specific indicators for energy and environmental agencies.
Significant earmarked funds will be used to finance the drinking water supply programs of the Environmental Protection Agency. Legislators approved 780 EPA allocations, 193 Corps of Engineers targets, 152 Department of Energy targets, and 132 Department of the Interior targets. The Department of Energy received 152 and the Department of the Interior received 134.
Some of the largest appropriations include a $10 million request by Kansas Senator Jerry Moran for the Kansas City Public Utilities Commission to replace aging water lines. Moran is a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations.
The other is Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a retiring member of the Republican leadership group, who is asking for $14 million to build a pumping station in Springfield, Missouri.
Millions of dollars committed to upgrading underserved communities include funding for renovations in the black-majority city of Jackson, Mississippi, which faced a water supply crisis this summer after a major drinking water treatment plant failed.
However, earmarking is controversial among those who fear infrastructure funding will support the government’s environmental justice agenda.
In the fight are government revolving funds (SRFs), which provide low-cost subsidized loans to communities and water utilities to upgrade drinking water and sanitation systems and comply with the federal Clean Water and Sanitation Act.
While the spending bill provides $2.76 billion in funding for the State Clean and Drinking Water Revolving Fund, about half of that amount ($1.47 billion) will go to earmarked appropriations for more than 700 projects.
Deidra Finn, executive director of the industry association’s Infrastructure Finance Board, which represents the regulators that oversee the SRF, said the FY2023 budget primarily uses capitalized grants from the government’s revolving fund to pay earmarked appropriations above last year’s level.
“Compared to previous funding (2021) [of the bipartisan infrastructure law], the allocation in 2023 results in a 47% reduction in SRF – 47% SRF and 46% SRF on drinking water,” she wrote.
When Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 earlier this summer, its supporters said the bill would reinvest in national research and development enterprises.
But a comprehensive plan released this week means Congress will fall short of the bill’s expectations — at least not yet. While the mandate program will see significant growth, spending falls short of the law’s ambitions.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science will receive $8.1 billion, $625 million more than the figure adopted for FY 2022. A significant increase in funding, this figure is below the $8.9 billion approved by CHIPS and Science.
The National Science Foundation will see one of the largest annual gains. The comprehensive plan includes $9.54 billion for the agency, $1 billion more than the figure passed in FY 2022. However, the Chips and Science Act set the allowance for fiscal year 2023 at $11.9 billion.
The appropriators partly made up the difference, including $1.8 billion in new funding to implement the bill, including $980 million in additional funding for agencies. The National Science Foundation will receive $335 million from the supplement.
“In manufacturing and science, we’ve received the first big advances for technology centers allowed under the Chip Act,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters on Tuesday. a dramatic increase in funding for new technology councils in the STEM workforce.”
The omnibus ridiculed President Joe Biden’s executive order earlier this year aimed at boosting domestic renewable energy production.
In a June executive order, Biden granted the Department of Energy permission under the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of solar energy, grid components, heat pumps, insulation and fuel cells. The move was meant to be a compromise after Biden delayed possible new tariffs on imported solar panels, angering domestic solar producers.
Earlier this year, under a Democratic deal, the Department of Energy provided DPA with some funding, including $500 million to build heat pump manufacturing capacity and another $500 million to extract critical minerals.
Earlier this month, Democratic lawmakers asked appropriators to provide $2.1 billion to the Department of Energy to implement the Defense Production Act to address shortages in power transformers and other power grid components.
Energy trade groups such as the Edison Electric Institute and the National Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives have been urging lawmakers to provide funding in recent weeks.
But with the DPA’s clean energy body receiving zero funding in the final review, it’s unclear how the Energy Department will implement any action Biden is demanding.
Supporters are pinning hopes for a major outdoor recreation package to be included in the comprehensive plan championed by Energy and Natural Resources Senate Chairman Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) and ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo. .
S. 3266, America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, will improve existing recreational facilities on federal lands, promote public-private partnerships to upgrade campgrounds, and provide technical and financial assistance to businesses in communities adjacent to recreational areas.
Jessica Turner, executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, described the bill as bipartisan and a unifying force among members of the House of Representatives, as well as Manchin, Barrasso and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Raul Jerry. senior member Bruce Westerman (R-Alabama) – on land that can be reached by bus.
Ultimately, a narrow land parcel was approved for inclusion—without the US Outdoor Recreation Act (E&E Daily, Dec. 20).
Turner said she and others still “hope” that Westerman, who is poised to become chairman of natural resources in the next Congress, “takes this very seriously and prominently as one of the first acts.”
In another disappointment for Manchin on Tuesday, the brief did not include the text of his amendments to revise the permitting process and build his cherished Valley pipeline. There is also a lack of legislation to strengthen wildlife restoration efforts.