There may be good news on the government shutdown front for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yesterday, it looked like the House Republicans, in thrall to their “cut EVERYTHING” Tea-Party wing, were going to allow the government to shut down over their intransigence on two items: Slashing the EPA (as well as blocking it from acting on climate change), and slashing funding for Planned Parenthood (which gets money for women’s health services – NOT abortion).
UPDATE: 11:15 PM EST
It’s done. Harry Reid is on the Senate floor announcing the deal. The Republicans gave in on the EPA and Title X/Planned Parenthood funding, and the Democrats in exchange gave them $78 billion in cuts. (See other updates below for an explanation of that number).
This afternoon, Politico is reporting an agreement may be reached on the EPA side.
Instead of the blocks on action they had been insisting on, they appear willing to agree to a “study of the economic effect of environmental regulations”
“EPA riders as proposed by the House will not be included,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters. He said the deal could include a study instead. “It’s one of the proposals. It isn’t all done until it’s all done.”
Got that? Nothing is final yet, but it looks good.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) told Politico,
“It sets up a study committee — across the board, government, everybody’s sitting at the table looking at the impact of these regulations, EPA and Commerce. But we’re looking at it now. There are no riders involving EPA. That is my understanding, period, and when I say my understanding, it is because there is no deal final. But at this stage, there are no riders.”
She added that they appear to have backed off from attempts to ram through benefits for Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining as well. “…Apparently they walked away from that because that would have been very unpopular. I think, and that would have actually repealed some sections of the Clean Water Act, so they backed off.”
-> Next Page: Comment from the GOP side, plus UPDATES
- GOP Votes to Repeal Climate Science
- Obama says he’ll veto anti-EPA bill (but not the budget cuts)
- EPA Vote: Senate Democrats about to screw things up on climate change again
- Climate Change: GOP Goes After EPA
- “Party of No” finally says yes – to more greenhouse gases
- Obama’s Energy/Climate Change Czar is Leaving the White House
- Newt Gingrich: Eliminate the EP
- Senate votes today on worst budget for the environment in 40 years
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About Jeremy Bloom
Legal, Safe and Rare
A fourteen-trillion deficit
Is nothing at to sneer,
But in these times of hope and change
We think we’ve been austere.
Another one-point-five-trillion
And then we’ll start to pare:
We want to keep our budget cuts
All legal, safe and rare.
We know the voters turned us out
The last election day,
And gave the House to radicals,
Hell-bent on foul play.
But voters took a different tack
And did the Senate spare,
So we just treat Republicans
As legal, safe and rare.
Though consequences are to flow
Beyond the ballot box,
In truth we don’t much give a damn
For populi’s clear vox.
So let those new House members
Pass all the bills they dare;
Their chances in the Upper House
Are legal, safe and rare.
And if the House’s budget cuts
Are aimed at NPR,
We’ll brand the cuts extremist hate;
We’ll paint the cuts bizarre.
And if Planned Parenthood should fall
Into the budget snare,
Abortion’s kept, we’ll say, by us
As legal, safe and rare.
Here’s hoping never comes the day
The public starts to seek,
The truth behind our fresh facade
And media technique.
For if they do we run the risk
They may become aware:
Few words can mask the truth as well
As legal, safe and rare.
Comment from Malhavoc430 at Reddit:
The US budget is like a 1st grader playing Oregon Trail. Spend all the money on ammunition so you can shoot at stuff, then wonder why your wagon is falling apart and everyone is dying of dysentery