Assault on Clean Energy & Clean Water

House Roll Call Vote 257

Issues: Clean Energy, Clean Water

Representative Michael Simpson (R-ID) sponsored H.R. 5895, the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019. This legislation would slash funding for clean energy programs such as the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. It also contains a number of anti-environmental policy riders that simply have no place in a spending bill, including a provision repealing the Clean Water Rule, a commonsense safeguard that protects the drinking water sources of one in three people in the U.S., and a “Salmon Extinction Rider” that would jeopardize the continued existence of thirteen imperiled wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin. On June 8, the House approved H.R. 5895 by a vote of 235-179 (House roll call vote 257). NO IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE. The H.R. 5895 conference report rejected the cuts to clean energy and new, anti-environmental policy riders contained in the House bill. The president signed the H.R. 5895 conference report into law on September 21.