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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Expert contact: Lukas Ross, (202) 222-0724, lross@foe.org

Communications contact: Kate Colwell, (202) 222-0744, kcolwell@foe.org

House re-opens assault against EPA, Interior

WASHINGTON

The House begins voting today on HR 2822, The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Act, 2016. The bill would cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by $718 million, nine percent below current levels. It also includes more than 20 policy riders which block key regulatory measures such as new rules on fracking, the Clean Power Plan and ozone pollution limits.

Although the Obama administration has already promised to veto the bill in its current form, amendments are being considered on the floor to further undermine environmental protections.

Friends of the Earth Climate and Energy Campaigner Lukas Ross offers the following statement in advance of today's floor votes:

Equipped with spending cuts and policy riders, House Republican leadership has presented a vision for an impotent Environmental Protection Agency unable to defend public health or the environment from corporate polluters. They are doing this by taking aim at 40 years worth of bipartisan environmental protection. Attacks against the Environmental Protection Agency are attacks on the American people and the clean air and clean water we need to survive.

Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.

(202) 783-7400