The FY16 Interior-EPA Appropriations bill hit an unexpected snag in the House of Representatives this month when a dispute over amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag prompted House Republican leaders to pull the bill from the floor and place the entire FY16 appropriations process on hold.
The Confederate flag became an issue in the debate because the Interior-EPA spending bill includes funding for the U.S. Park Service, which manages several cemeteries that hold the remains of Civil War veterans. Lawmakers had proposed a series of amendments related to whether and how Confederate flags may be displayed in these cemeteries and Park Service-run gift shops, but it soon became apparent that the issue could cause the entire spending bill to go down in defeat. Rather than allowing the bill to fail, House Speaker John Boehner pulled the bill from the floor and said he wanted lawmakers to “sit down and have a conversation about how to address” the flag issue. Boehner said action on all outstanding FY16 appropriations bills would remain on hold until that process was complete.
The 2016 fiscal year begins on October 1, and Congress has yet to enact any of the twelve spending bills to fund the federal government next year. Lawmakers will only have several weeks to address spending needs once they return from the annual August recess after Labor Day, and Speaker Boehner subsequently acknowledged that a short-term continuing resolution (CR) will be necessary to keep the government operational into the new fiscal year. CRs typically extend current programmatic funding levels for a period of several days to several months, but at this point it is unknown whether congressional Republicans might attempt to reduce funding levels through a CR – something that would almost certainly prompt widespread Democratic opposition.
Before getting sidetracked, the Interior-EPA spending legislation (H.R. 2822) had seemingly been on a path to passage along party lines. Lawmakers on the floor did not propose any changes to the bill’s funding levels for EPA ($7.4 billion), the State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs ($757 million for the Drinking Water SRF, $1.018 billion for the Clean Water SRF), or its inclusion of $4.4 million for EPA to administer the new Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program.
Earlier debate on the bill also touched on EPA’s controversial Clean Water Rule, with the House rejecting by a vote of 179 – 250 an amendment to strike language from the measure that would prevent EPA from spending funds to implement or enforce the rule.