U.S. House votes to limit EPA spending on appeals AIR: Young sponsors legislation seen as helpful to offshore drilling.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to keep the EPA from spending any money considering challenges to air-quality permits in the Arctic, a move sponsored by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and aimed at opening the region to more offshore drilling.

All week, the House has been working on a spending bill that cuts as much as $61 billion from what the federal government will spend through the rest of the 2011 fiscal year.

But the House majority also used the legislation to signal their frustration with the Obama administration's environmental policies, in particular by passing amendments limiting the power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Among them: Young's amendment, which prohibits the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board from spending any money considering challenges to the agency's decisions about air-quality permits in the Arctic.

"This amendment does not circumvent the EPA's authority," Young said on the House floor. "Instead, it continues to give permitting decisions to the professionals in the regional offices. What this amendment will do is remove the ability for lawyers to overrule EPA permit writers."

Shell announced this month it will postpone its Arctic drilling program until at least next year because of appeals to an EPA-issued air permit that lets the company move forward with exploratory offshore drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

The work on the spending bill could be largely for show -- although it does signal GOP priorities as the House puts together its separate 2012 budget legislation. The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to reject the spending bill, and President Barack Obama said this week he'd veto it -- both scenarios that could lead to a government shutdown.

Regardless, Republicans have pushed ahead with dozens of environmental and land-use amendments, including a successful vote Thursday to curtail the EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, sponsored by three Republican congressmen from Texas.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS APPALLED

This month, the EPA officials said they asked the appeals board to reconsider, and they are working with Shell to regain its permits.

EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said Friday that the agency had no comment on the Arctic amendment, or any others in the bill, other than the White House statement of administration policy on it, released Tuesday.

"The bill proposes cuts that would sharply undermine core government functions and investments key to economic growth and job creation, and would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the Department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements," the statement said.

Environmental groups, though, have been monitoring the amendment with concern all week. Air-quality standards are in place for a reason, said Lois Epstein, Arctic Program Director for The Wilderness Society.

"Unbelievably, Congressman Young is pushing for lower air quality for Alaskan communities than the Clean Air Act gives East Coast communities," she said. "Scaling back safety measures to fast-track offshore drilling threatens all of the Arctic -- from the communities on shore to the animals that live in the icy waters."

ALASKA SENATORS SPLIT

A spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said that although he shares Young's frustrations with the Environmental Appeals Board and the delays it has caused for development in the Arctic, he doesn't support the amendment.

"Even the EPA has pointed out how misguided much of this decision was. However, getting rid of the public process because we disagree with the answer isn't productive," said spokeswoman Julie Hasquet. "Senator Begich believes we need the EPA and other agencies to put aside distractions and buckle down, do their work, and give industry the guidance it needs to move forward on oil and gas production in the Arctic."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who is the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in the past has proposed language to scale back the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. She did not take a position on Young's amendment, however. "There's a real concern, which we believe is legitimate, that the EPA has greatly overreached its authority and that its environmental appeals board is philosophically opposed to any development anywhere. What you're seeing in the House is a natural response to that, and I suspect there will be similar efforts in the Senate," said Robert Dillon, Murkowski's spokesman on the Energy Committee.