As Though Things Aren't Bad Enough: GOP Budget Cuts For the EPA and More Destruction For Appalachia

As though we don’t have it bad enough already, the GOP in the House of Representatives wants to slash the budget for the EPA and turn Appalachia into even more of a wasteland.

            Under the House Interior and Environment spending bill to come before the House Appropriations subcommittee today, the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency would be slashed by 34 percent from its 2012 level. With this kind of budget slashing, it’s hard to imagine how the agency could adequately keep our air and water clean. The EPA budget for 2012 was $8,449,385,000, a dollar amount that is only three quarters of what it was 20 years ago had the budget kept up with inflation. The 34 percent cut would essentially half the agency’s budget from what it was a generation ago.

            As though the third-world regulation of mining practices in Appalachia aren’t lax enough, the bill has in its crosshairs language in the Clean Water Act that is related to the stream buffer rule and the definition of “fill material” that is allowed in our nation’s waterways. The buffer rule, which restricts the dumping of mining waste to at least 100 feet from streams, and regulation on fill material can be applied to mitigate, at least somewhat, the destruction of mountaintop removal coal mining. Seeing the extent of the destruction from mountaintop removal, I have a hard time seeing how it could be less regulated, but I guess the House GOP has the bigger and bigger mountaintop mines dancing in their heads.

The changes to the Clean Water Act would invalidate a recent victory for the EPA, in which the agency revoked a permit for an expansion of a mountaintop mine that would have destroyed miles of streams. The bill would also block the Interior Department from toughening up environmental regulations on the dumping of waste from mountaintop removal mining.

            There are a lot of other bad things in this bill. Arts funding is cut, and the sulfur content of gasoline would not be reduced, as per the EPA. As part of this package, even though we are not at war, the GOP plans to increase military spending.