Progressive Farmer
Chris Clayton DTN Ag Policy Editor
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House Votes Against Money for E15, Blender Pumps, EPA
(latest update)
Here's a rundown on some amendments that passed as the House of Representatives passed a Continuing Resolution on spending to cut about $61 billion out of the current federal budget.
Ethanol would take hits with no money to spend on 15 percent ethanol or blender pumps.
The Environmental Protection Agency also would not be allowed to implement a rule on farm dust, greenhouse-gas emissions or any other climate change measure, or higher water-quality standards in the Chesapeake Bay or Florida.
The House voted around 2 a.m. EDT, to block funds preventing the EPA from implementing the 15 percent ethanol waiver. The Amendment was offered by Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla. And passed 285 to 136. Republicans had 206 votes joining 79 Democrats to back the measure. Thirty one Republicans and 105 Democrats voted against it.
The House had voted about an hour earlier to prevent spending any federal funds for the rest of the fiscal year on construction of blender pumps or an ethanol storage facility. The vote had 78 Democrats joining 183 Republicans to get 261 votes approving the amendment.
"The taxpayers have subsidized ethanol for far too long," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in describing the blocked funding. "This amendment will simply bring that slowly to a stop."
Growth Energy, which championed E15 and also wants to convert the ethanol blenders' credit into spending for infrastructure, stated in a release on Saturday that the amendments by Sullivan and Flake "would continue America’s addiction to foreign oil and harm our economy."
“The Sullivan provision picks politics over science. EPA’s consideration of E15 was based on a more exhaustive study and collection of data than any of the 11 previously-approved petitions. No other fuel mix has been tested more,” said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, which filed the Green Jobs Waiver for E15 in March 2009. “With all the turmoil going on in the Middle East and elsewhere, the House of Representatives just voted to stop the only viable alternative to foreign oil: ethanol. It is the wrong move at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.”
Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, spoke in opposition to Flake's amendment, saying it limits consumer choice and is another attack on the nation's progress to move toward energy security. Without the blender pumps, most Americans would continue with just E10, and continue to import more oil.
Flake countered that it's not a consumer choice, it's a mandate and called ethanol a "boondoggle for 30 years."
Also early Saturday morning,the House voted 255-168 on an amendment by Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., to prevent the EPA from regulating agricultural dust, a major thorn in the side of lawmakers from rural America. There were 234 Republicans and 21 Democrats who voted for the measure. Four Republican joined 164 Democrats voting against it. Under the amendment no funds would be made available to modify the national primary ambient air quality standard or the national secondary ambient air quality standard" under the Clean Air Act.
As it was, the House voted Friday and early Saturday in a barrage of amendments to hit the EPA's ability to implement climate and clean-water rules.
Despite the flurry of amendments in the House to cut spending, the House Continuing Resolution still has to go through the Senate and President Obama has said he would veto the cuts.
Under one amendment, the House voted earlier in the day that no funds could be used by the EPA "to implement, administer, or enforce any statutory or regulatory requirement pertaining to emission of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons from stationary sources that is issues or becomes applicable or effective after Jan. 1, 2011."
Effectively, under that rule there would be no rule to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Another amendment blocks any funding for the United Nations panel on climate change.
In another heated discussion on the Chesapeake Bay, the House also voted 230-195 to eliminate funding from EPA actions on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who offered the amendment, to eliminate said the EPA was placing arbitrary limits on nutrients and an expansion of authority under the Clean Water Act would devastate local economies. Goodlatte said individual states and communities are better suited to establish water goals than the EPA.
"The EPA does not have authority to micromanage states' water quality goals and we must stop their power grab," he said.
Goodlatte said his amendment would not stop voluntary cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
Rep. James Moran, D-Va., called Goodlatte's amendment "extreme" and would hurt multi-state, pollution-reduction efforts in the Chesapeake Bay. "Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is a job killer for citizens in this watershed," Moran said.
Goodlatte noted the bay is getting healthier without the EPA mandate.
Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., also got a similar amendment passed to eliminate funding for EPA's total maximum daily load of nutrient requirements in Florida as well. Those regulations actually do not go into effect until March 2012.
Another amendment by Rep. Tom McClintock, D-Calif., blocks implementing funds for a Klamath Dam removal and sedimentation study as part of the TMDL for that river basin. Environmentalists and others want to remove dams along the Klamath River. That amendment passed 215-210 in a vote that caused a round boos in the chamber of the House by Democrats.
A summary of the amendment votes can be found at http://clerk.house.gov/…
Specific language on the amendments debated in the House resolution can be found at http://rules.house.gov/…
Posted at 10:36AM CST 02/19/11 by Chris Clayton
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