It took 1,603 pages of legalese to keep the U.S. government running for another year. That is the length of the 2015 Fiscal Year Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which was approved by the Senate on Saturday to appropriate $1.01 trillion dollars for most federal agencies and departments through September 2015. The bill is on Pres. Obama’s desk waiting for his signature.
It is not all about dollars. Congress also loaded the bill with special instructions, called policy riders, which dictate how government funds must be spent. Because the bill was rushed through just before the government ran out of money, and Congressional leaders did not want another government shutdown if the bill did not pass, lawmakers seized the opportunity to tack on controversial riders that might otherwise have been debated.
A lot of those 11th-hour mandates will affect science and environmental policy. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, got $8.1 billion. That’s $60 million less than last year and the agency now has to operate at its smallest budget since 1989. But even that money comes with conditions. Although agriculture is a major source of atmospheric methane, Congress forbade the EPA from using its funds to require farmers to report greenhouse gas emissions from “manure management systems.” And the agency is no longer permitted to regulate farm ponds and irrigation ditches under the Clean Water Act.
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Here are a few of the key riders and their effects in different areas:
Environment
The EPA is not only forbidden from regulating cow manure, it cannot require farmers to obtain permits for gas emissions from cow belches and farts, which the agency says is a major methane source.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot take many of the steps required to prevent the extinction of the Gunnison sage grouse, despite the bird’s continued decline.
Pres. Obama is not allowed to fulfill his pledge to give $3 billion to the United Nations Green Climate Fund, designed to spur other countries to respond to global warming.
Agriculture
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) must speed up permits for companies developing genetically modified organisms, like disease-resistant rice and soybeans.
Energy
The Export–Import Bank, the U.S.’s official export credit agency, must loan funds to companies to build coal-fired power plants overseas, reversing a previous ban.
The Department of Energy cannot develop and enforce new standards for more energy-efficient lightbulbs.
Transportation
The Transportation Department cannot fund most of its current light-rail projects.
Health and Nutrition
The USDA must allow people in a supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children to use vouchers—previously for fruits and green vegetables—to buy white potatoes.
Michelle Obama’s initiative for healthier school lunches cannot insist that schools serve whole grains if a school shows that obtaining those grains causes financial hardship.
The National Institutes of Health must fund research, specifically in neuroscience (via the BRAIN Initiative), Alzheimer’s and Ebola.
By the numbers alone, the budget bill maintained many agencies at status quo. The NIH kept its current budget and received increases in funds for Alzheimer’s and Ebola research. Funding for defense research went up, with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency receiving a 3.4 percent increase, plus additional funds for fighting Ebola. And space science clearly won the day, with NASA receiving $500 million more than it initially requested.