The House will take up an anti-environmental "spending" bill (the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, FY 2012) that, if passed, will destroy a host of our nation’s best environmental programs and policies while slashing spending for environmental protection. Among the most egregious provisions: Crippling the EPA; withholding funding for listing endangered species; all but eliminating the highly successful, 50 year old Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and giving a green light to mining at Grand Canyon National Park.

This radical spending bill, passed out of committee late last week on a straight party line vote, would:

Exempt Big Oil’s massive offshore drilling operations from Clean Air Act requirements designed to protect our health and our environment.
Prohibit the EPA from using funds to reduce carbon dioxide pollution that leads to climate change; and keep the agency from enforcing Clean Water Act protections for thousands of American streams and wetlands.
Slash funding for National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund; the Forest Legacy Program and the Legacy Roads and Trails Program.
Slash the enormously successful and popular Land and Water Conservation Fund by 80% -- all but terminating it. The LWCF uses a portion of funds from offshore oil drilling revenues to help conserve federal, state and local open space, outdoor recreation opportunities, trails, and park land nationwide. As states make their own deep cuts to budgets, this program grows in importance.
Eliminate water pollution laws for logging roads on national forests and allow for expanded off-road vehicle use on national forests in California.
Overturn a recent Obama Administration decision to prohibit uranium mining at Grand Canyon National Park, a campaign many WildAlert subscribers helped win.