Environment, Energy Issues on Backburner as Congress Returns

Environment and energy issues are expected to take a back seat to major must-pass measures, which Congress must move on now that it has returned from the August recess.Hurricane Harvey disaster aid for Texas is at the top of Congress' agenda, as is a vote to increase the debt ceiling before the government reaches its borrowing limit sometime in October. Congressional leaders will likely need at least a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to avert a government shutdown after government funding lapses September 30. Progress on a combined Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Interior Department spending bill and pending EPA nominations — including Susan Bodine to head EPA's enforcement office — may have to wait.Given that dynamic, it is also unclear when the Senate will take up other pending nominations, including several Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seats, said David Popp, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. In the House, Republicans will work this week to move the Fiscal 2018 EPA-Interior spending bill (HR 3354), likely as part of larger "minibus" package combining more than a half-dozen other spending measures. The House Rules Committee has a scheduled hearing today to consider such a minibus bill that will pull together eight appropriations bills.For its part, the EPA-Interior bill includes Republican-led efforts to help the Trump administration roll back the Obama-era Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule that determined the Clean Water Act's (CWA) jurisdiction over U.S. waterways. Other riders seek to delay ozone air pollution standards and block the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing of the greater sage grouse. Similar controversial riders have been mostly abandoned in the past to ensure support of Democrats, who still have significant leverage in the Senate on what is included in spending bills.