Zinke addresses possible government shutdown, Interior, EPA funding, and wokeness

Facing a partial government shutdown in two weeks, House Republicans are in a rush to complete passage of 12 appropriations bills that comprise the federal budget. It’s unlikely a Nov. 17 deadline to avoid a shutdown will be met.

A stopgap funding measure brokered by House and Senate leadership outside the public process to keep the government fully open is probable. So is an intraparty fight over straying from “regular order,” that is to say, the practice of budgeting through subcommittees and committees. Sound familiar? Having blown through the month of October selecting a new speaker — the last one was lost in a coup staged by Republican hardliners, Montana’s Matt Rosendale among them — House lawmakers are back to where they were in September.

It hasn’t been pretty, but the wagons are rolling again, said Ryan Zinke, Western Montana’s Republican representative. The House passed two more appropriations bills before heading home for the weekend. It needs to pass a few more to cycle out of agency budget bills.

Zinke is a House Appropriations Committee member. “I was concerned that we didn’t put the lug nuts on it all, but it seems like the wagon’s moving forward,” Zinke said, recognizing last month’s speaker chaos as an unpleasant distraction. “I said in conference this morning, ‘We all agreed that we would go through the appropriations.

And appropriations do two things, they curb spending using the power of the purse and they remove the woke, through policy. Those are our greatest powers,” he said. Indian Health Service funding is up $149 million, though House Republican note that what IHS would receive is $2.

2 billion below what President Joe Biden requested. Woke, in the parlance of the Republicans is anything regarded as too liberal. In bills, it means amendments to defund travel for military personnel seeking abortion access, and a ban on transgender healthcare.

This week, the budget for the EPA was cut 39%, making the $6. 2 billion approved the smallest appropriation for the agency in 32 years. EPA programs to curb carbon emissions, passed a year ago by Democrats were undone.

The bill prohibits government agencies from using the social cost of carbon cost-benefit analysis in place since the George W. Bush administration. A Montana judge in August ordered state agencies to begin doing similar analysis, though none have.

The same bill included a 4. 5% cut to The Department of Interior budget and a 13% cut to national parks. Zinke pointed out that the bill blocks Glacier National Park from spending money on a vehicle rationing system, but funds the Bureau of Indian Affairs at levels higher than in 2023.

There were counter measures to Democratic policies passed in 2022 concerning oil and gas exploration on federal land, particularly drilling off the Alaskan shore. “It does focus on national energy policy a lot to make sure that we move forward on energy independence and not become dependent upon our foreign adversaries for energy needs, in the EV world or Venezuela,” Zinke said. “You know, Iran probably benefitted $80 billion from circumnavigating the sanctions that were put in place.

” The $80 billion references a talking point in active circulation about oil sold by Iran during the Joe Biden presidency. The inference is that lax enforcement of sanctions is allowing Iran to sell oil to fund terrorism, specifically Hamas. The Washington Post investigated the claim and found that Iran’s oil sales, while improving since 2021, are probably closer to $32 billion, than $80, or $70 billion as suggested by the Heritage Foundation’s publication the “Daily Signal,” or $100 billion as Texas Sen.

Ted Cruz has stated. There’s been no proof that Iranian oil money is flowing directly to Hamas, but as Montana U. S.

Sen. Steve Daines said earlier, more money to spend is money that can be spent on anything. Zinke said Interior funding also includes money given to counties where federal land takes were fully covered by the House appropriations for Interior.

PILT payments to Montana counties totaled $40 million last year. It isn’t uncommon for PILT to be targeted for cuts. House appropriations bills require a simple majority to pass and draw little if any votes from Democratic lawmakers.

The lack of bipartisan support makes the bills unlikely to pass the Senate, where a 60-vote threshold must be cleared, and bipartisan support is essential. “It goes back to the positions of where the two houses are. A Democrat-led Senate is above the spending line.

A Republican-led House is below the spending line,” Zinke said. “And then you go into conference, and you address priorities. The House is very insistent on offsets.

We make a choice, you want 78,000 more IRS troopers (employees), or do you want to fund Israel? That one’s a pretty easy decision. ”.