Deal includes US-Mexico drilling pact

The budget deal announced on Tuesday by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would approve a U.S.-Mexico agreement that enables offshore drilling cooperation along a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico.

The deal, which calls for $1.012 trillion in federal spending in 2014, gave the Interior Department the go-ahead on the agreement.

{mosads}The drilling pact, which backers say would provide much needed certainty to allow development along the Gulf boundary, ultimately opens up oil and gas reservoirs across 1.5 million acres of the outer continental shelf.

In October, the Senate passed a bill that would implement the pact, but the House-approved bill gave companies operating under the U.S.-Mexico pact waivers from a Dodd-Frank law mandate to disclose payments form foreign governments.

The exemption provision was not included in the budget deal announced on Tuesday evening.

In addition to the drilling agreement, the deal would replace some sequestration cuts to federal environmental programs.

The Natural Resources Defense Council cheered the bipartisan deal, calling on Congress to approve it.

“Without this deal, funding for non-defense discretionary programs within the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior would have been 18 percent below 2010 levels, adjusted for inflation,” Scott Slesinger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.

“This deal means the public will have greater environmental protection, better parks and more modernized sewage and water facilities.”

The Hill’s On The Money blog has more on the complete budget deal here.

And you can read about smaller energy provisions in the deal here.