EPA Gets Cut in Spending Deal

There has been a vociferous debate in both the House and Senate over whether the Environmental Protection Agency should have the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  While the effort to rein in the EPA has stalled in the Senate, Republicans were able to secure a cut of 1.6 billion to the ambitious agency’s baseline in the recent continuing resolution that averted a government shutdown.

The cut amounts to a reduction of 16 percent of the EPA’s funding from last year’s level.  Funding for federal land grab initiatives receive a reduction of $149 million, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities are reduced by a combined total of $25 million compared to the previous year’s level.

Climate change related programs take a whack, as spending on these increasingly irrelevant programs is reduced by $40 million.  This provision entails freezing funding  to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate service, while eliminating the so-called “climate czar” position of the executive branch.  This seems to be an easy decision, as outside a few climate cranks, polling suggests that global warming is the least important issue amongst a myriad of other environmental issues.

The President’s ubiquitously failing green energy initiatives are also slashed in the recent continuing resolution.  Spending on the President’s vaunted green technology programs is cut by $408 million below 2010 levels.

This is a good start, but it is largely a pyrrhic victory for supporters of limited government intervention in the private sector.  The EPA and the Obama administration will surely remain relentless in micro-regulating every aspect of the American economy, irrespective of reductions in spending.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”.  Keep the pressure on your elected representatives to remain vigilant in defending our liberty from unelected rogue agencies.