The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations released the first draft of a spending bill for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service and other federal agencies that guts key environmental protections and plays politics with our health.

The following statement is from Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice:

“The Republican leadership in the appropriations committee in the House of Representatives revealed its true nature today by proposing legislation that will gut important environmental protections and sacrifice thousands of lives. The GOP has sharpened their knives to slice off EPA safeguards against toxic coal ash, pesticide exposure, greenhouse gases, air pollution from offshore drilling and water pollution. They’ve proposed to delay important regulations governing destructive mountaintop removal mining and pollution dumping into U.S. waters. Their move would allow more offshore oil drilling and remove protections for endangered species. Given the large number of environmental riders on this spending bill, it looks like riders are the new earmark.

“Washington D.C. has never seen such an environmental disaster as the one that is happening in the House appropriations committee. Our elected officials are sacrificing regulations that will save lives, protect our drinking water, clean our air and save our mountains and species. It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s at play. The campaign donations made by big polluters are finally starting to pay off. The industries that would have finally cleaned up their pollution are getting a hall pass from their cronies in Congress. These attacks put politics over science and undermine the process by which the public participates in important rulemakings that impact their lives. It is a sad day for the millions of Americans who will continue to suffer exposure to pollution in their air and water, or to the iconic places and special species that we have tried to protect.”