House appropriations officials on Wednesday unveiled funding proposals for the Interior Department and the EPA, cutting deeper into science and research programs, ramping up mining on public lands and approving the Trump administration’s new Wildland Fire Authority authorization.
The House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee announced a $38.9 billion spending bill for fiscal year 2027, which includes a 20% (about $1.8 billion) cut to the EPA. Mr. Interior’s funding will increase by about 2%.
“America’s public lands and natural resources are not just part of our heritage; they are strategic assets that support recreation, connect communities, expand opportunity, and strengthen our way of life,” Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a statement.
Cole said the measure focuses on “practical stewardship to manage land responsibly, free up the nation’s energy, strengthen wildfire response, and ensure government agencies focus on results, not red tape.”
The House bill includes $1.54 billion to consolidate inland firepower into a new Wildland Fire Department. About 4,000 employees from agencies including the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service have already been combined into the new organization, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has suggested the number could grow to 13,000.
However, this figure also includes the absorption of certain Forest Service employees, and debate remains over whether Congress would be required to sign such a cross-agency agreement. Specifically, the fiscal year 2027 spending bill provides $5.2 billion to the Forest Service for wildland fire management and suppression.
The proposal also aims to boost energy production across federal lands, prohibits the use of funds for new mineral extraction without Congressional approval, and includes language to reinstate hard-rock mining leases near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness in northern Minnesota.
Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of Chilean mining company Antofagasta, had its lease terminated in 2022 under the Biden administration.
The House bill also would introduce new fees for inspections of offshore wind turbines outside the continental shelf, agreeing with a proposal put forward by the Trump administration, which has aggressively sought to slow or stop renewable energy production.
These fees include, for example, $15,400 for a visual inspection of a wind turbine generator to $72,800 for a single physical inspection of a wind turbine generator.
The bill represents House Republicans’ first negotiating position ahead of months of negotiations. The Senate is likely to proceed with a bipartisan spending bill, and both chambers will need to reconcile their differences.
Democrats criticized the House Interior and EPA spending bill, pointing to cuts to the Department of the Interior and National Arts and Culture, as well as a lack of language to curb spending on President Donald Trump’s proposed Arc de Triomphe.
“With the announcement of the FY27 Interior Act, it is clear that House Republicans are once again pushing an agenda that will accelerate the climate crisis, threaten the air we breathe and the water we drink, and leave communities to fend for themselves,” Subcommittee Ranking Member Cherry Pingree (D-Maine) said in a statement.
EPA faces 20% reduction
The House Republican spending bill would significantly reduce EPA funding, but not as much as the Trump administration proposed.
The agency will receive $7.04 billion in fiscal year 2027, a 20% reduction from its enacted annual budget of approximately $8.82 billion. The White House blueprint only budgets $4.2 billion for the EPA, which would waste more than 50% of the funding. House Republicans proposed similar cuts last year, but Congress ultimately only cut the EPA by 4% in fiscal year 2026.
House appropriators also refused to follow the president’s direction on the agency’s state and tribal assistance grants, which fund environmental efforts at the state and local level. The bill would provide $3.7 billion for these grants, a 16% cut from current funding, but Trump’s budget proposal would reduce the program to nearly zero.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee, had indicated that the proposed cuts were a non-starter. “There will not be an 83% reduction in state and tribal aid,” Simpson said at a hearing last month.
Lawmakers granted the administration’s request for $290 million for the Superfund program to clean up toxic waste sites. They noted that the bill accounts for “additional funding” from a presumed “polluter pays” tax, according to the Republican bill summary.
EPA’s science and technology operations will receive $527.94 million, a 29% reduction from enacted funding, while the Environmental Programs and Management Division’s budget will be $2.29 billion, an approximately 26% reduction from FY2026.
Although not as drastic as the president’s budget request, Democrats lamented the spending bill’s cuts to EPA funding.
“This 20% cut has serious implications for investment in environmental justice, enforcement, and climate action,” the minority party said in its own bill summary.
Ryder would further restrict the EPA, including banning funding to incorporate the social cost of carbon and implementing reporting requirements for greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural operations.
The agency has already suffered during the Trump administration. Since last year, thousands of employees have left the agency, and the agency has undergone a major reorganization that closed the Office of Environmental Justice and dismantled valuable research programs.
Transportation funds also revealed
House appropriators also unveiled the FY 2027 Transportation and HUD bill, proposing a 10.4% cut in federal spending on infrastructure, housing, and community development.
The Republican majority proposes to redirect nearly $8 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 from “wasteful Democratic priorities” to safety programs and efforts to make travel more “reliable,” according to a bill summary.
The bill would strengthen air traffic control needs, in part by using $1 billion in non-obligated IIJA funds for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, and would also increase funding for some highway, airport and maritime infrastructure programs.
The bill also proposes transferring unobligated infrastructure spending from the highway project account and Amtrak, which would reduce funding in fiscal year 2027. The Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit Administration would have most of their funding eliminated.
The Democratic Party criticized the bill, calling IIJA’s relocation “unrealistic.” They pointed out that the bill would cut the Department of Transportation’s budget by 22 percent, eliminate funding to address lead-based paint hazards from low-income housing, and block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from updating energy efficiency standards for public housing.
Alex Guillen contributed to this report.
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