By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

The House spending bill passed last month wouldn’t just chop $60 billion from the federal budget — it seeks to cut a broad swath through environmental regulation.

From fish protections in California to water pollution limits in Florida and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide, environmental programs were targets of the Republican budget resolution, which appears to have been as much about setting a political agenda as about deficit reduction.

Democrats have promised to block the environmental and other cuts in the Senate, where they hold a slim majority, and President Obama has raised the threat of a veto, making it unlikely that many of the hits in the proposal will survive. Lawmakers last week passed a stopgap measure to keep the government operating while they hash out a compromise.

But few expect the recently elected and highly motivated GOP majority in the House to give up. “I think they’re going to try and use every tactic in the book,” said Nick Loris, a research associate with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “This is largely what they came into office saying they were going to do.”

The continuing resolution adopted by the House two weeks ago swings a much bigger ax than similar proposals that helped stall a spending measure, resulting in a government shutdown in 1995. “I’ve never seen anything remotely like this. The sheer scope of it is overwhelming,” said Sean Hecht, executive director of the UCLA Environmental Law Center.

Read the whole story