House panel approves energy spending

A House subpanel has approved a slimmed-down energy bill that would cut spending — though not as much as proposed by President Trump.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development approved a $37.6 billion spending bill that represents a $209 million decrease from current spending levels. It would allocate $3.65 billion more than Trump’s budget request.

“This is a responsible bill, one that makes some difficult choices in order to prioritize the most critical federal programs,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the subcommittee’s chairman.

{mosads}The bill accepted Trump’s proposal to eliminate the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), an agency that invests in energy-related research and development.

But it also leaned away from some of Trump’s requests, adding funds for programs shoring up America’s nuclear weapons and military engineering and continuing research and development for fossil fuels. 

Subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) said the plan shortchanged renewable energy and science funding and registered strong objections to policy riders on clean water and environmental regulation, including language speeding up a reversal of the Obama administration’s regulation extending federal pollution oversight over small waterways.

“I must say that the cuts that we are facing cede the future to our competitors, who are coopting energy technologies and stealing intellectual property as we sit here today, that the American people paid us to protect,” Kaptur said.

But in an increasingly rare note of bipartisanship, she also praised Simpson for working together to find common ground.

“We agree on much more than we disagree upon, and I do believe that this subcommittee has a broad and clear sense of what is in America’s present and future interests,” she said.

The full appropriations committee must still mark up the legislation before it is sent to the House.