Senate Democrats rule out ‘ridiculous’ EPA, NPR policy riders

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is taking a strong stance against House GOP policy riders as negotiations to keep the government funded beyond April 8 reach their final week.
 
White House officials and Democratic and Republican leaders will work through the weekend in an effort to meet next Friday’s deadline.
 
{mosads}Reid told reporters during a Friday conference call that an agreement on 2011 spending levels would not include any riders affecting the Environmental Protection Agency.
 
He also ruled out a GOP amendment stripping funding for NPR, which has stirred outrage among many Democrats and independents.
 
The statements were among Reid’s clearest to date on a slew of controversial policy amendments that House Republicans insist should be part of a spending deal.
 
House Republicans included a litany of amendments to H.R. 1, the package of spending cuts they passed in February, blocking EPA funding for various environmental initiatives.
 
“We announced the other night in our meeting with the vice president that [neither] the White House nor Senate leaders are going to accept any EPA riders,” Reid said of a Wednesday meeting he and other Democratic leaders held with Vice President Joe Biden.
 
The House-passed H.R. 1 included amendments prohibiting funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, the Conservation Stewardship Program and EPA regulation of gases linked to global climate change.
 
The legislation included riders to block the EPA’s ability to deny mining permits under the authority of the Clean Water Act and designate coal ash residue as hazardous waste.
 
Reid said at a press conference last month that Republicans also need to give up on a policy rider to stop federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
 
“We are going to have a full discussion on the riders. We have said time and time again that riders that are ridiculous in nature — and most of them are — have no chance of surviving,” Reid told reporters. 
 
“There are some places we’re not going to go,” he said, citing amendments affecting Planned Parenthood and NPR. 

Earlier this week, Reid signaled he might accept a few of the less controversial policy amendments.
 
“We’ll have a look at the policy riders — there aren’t very many that excite me,” Reid said. “In fact, we have already started having a look at them.”
 
Some think Democrats could accept a rider to cut funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or another to restrict aid to students at for-profit universities.

Democrats might also agree to cut funding for signage touting the 2009 economic stimulus package as the funding source for infrastructure projects, according to these observers. 
 
Reid has also said that mandatory spending cuts must be part of an agreement to fund the government through the end of September, even though Republicans want to cut exclusively from discretionary spending accounts.
 
“We feel that there are maybe a few more dollars we can squeeze out of the domestic discretionary side,” he said, warning that negotiators have almost reached the limit of what Democrats can accept from discretionary programs.
 
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), who also participated on the call, said: “For several weeks now we made clear that mandatory spending must be in the final deal.
 
“Otherwise the cuts become so deep on certain programs that they cut into the bone,” he added.
 
Schumer said the two sides would work through the weekend to meet the fast approaching deadline.
 
Democratic leaders said they are edging closer to a final agreement but warned that House conservatives affiliated with the Tea Party could derail it.
 
“We’re on the doorstep of a deal as long as the Speaker resists the Tea Party Republicans in the House who are against any compromise,” Schumer said.
 
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) told reporters that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could rely on Democratic votes to pass a bipartisan compromise if conservative Republicans vote against the deal.
 
“Speaker Boehner understands that if comes with a reasonable approach to this, he look for the other side of the aisle for support,” Durbin said. “He did it just a few weeks ago for a short-term spending bill.”
 
Eighty-five House Democrats helped pass a short-term funding measure in mid-March after 54 Republicans revolted against their leadership and voted no.

Erik Wasson contributed to this article.