House slashes $8.4M from EPA program

The House voted Wednesday night to sharply cut funding for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that collects data on industrial greenhouse gas emissions. 

In a 239-185 vote, the House approved Rep. Mike Pompeo’s (R-Kan.) amendment cutting more than $8.4 million from the program. The cut would leave funding for the registry at $3.2 million, his office said.

{mosads}Pompeo, on the House floor Wednesday, called the registry part of an EPA plot to destroy U.S. jobs and claims it “drives up the cost of doing business.”

“EPA would, I am sure, tell you that they are simply collecting a little bit of data on greenhouse gases, that this registry is simply a very innocent effort to learn a little bit more about who is emitting greenhouse gases — who or what,” he said on the House floor.

“But this data is the very foundation of the EPA’s effort to pursue its radical anti-jobs agenda. Indeed, continuing the greenhouse gas registry at currently funded levels will permit the EPA regulatory nose inside the job-destroying tent. We cannot head down this path,” he added.

The underlying federal spending bill on the House floor this week also blocks funding for EPA’s initial climate change regulations. The agency this year began phasing in greenhouse gas permitting rules for large new and modified industrial facilities, such as power plants.