June 4, 2015 — The House passed a spending bill yesterday that would make cuts to climate research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as prevent the agency from enforcing a short recreational season for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.
The $51.4 billion spending bill would fund the fiscal 2016 budgets for the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, NASA, the National Science Foundation and related agencies. NOAA — which is housed within Commerce — would get about $5.2 billion, a cut of more than $270 million to its current budget (Greenwire, May 19).
The House passed the bill 242-183, on a largely party-line vote. Twelve Democrats — Reps. Brad Ashford of Nebraska; Julia Brownley and Jim Costa of California; Cheri Bustos of Illinois; Henry Cuellar, Gene Green and Filemon Vela of Texas; Gwen Graham of Florida; Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire; Sean Maloney of New York; Collin Peterson of Minnestoa; and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — joined most Republicans to pass H.R. 2578.
Lawmakers spent much of Tuesday and yesterday debating and voting on amendments. Several Democrats offered symbolic amendments — which they subsequently withdrew — restoring funds to NOAA’s climate research programs. The spending bill cuts such research by $30 million.
“This Congress has repeatedly affirmed that climate change is real. We may have different ideas about the causes of climate chance and certainly about what we can do to combat it,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “It makes no sense to slash the very research which will enable us to find effective bipartisan solutions.”
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