House approves cuts package

E&E News

20 hours ago

The House approved a $9.4 billion rescissions package Thursday, a White House priority that would claw back more than half a billion dollars for international disaster aid and clean energy programs.
The 'Rescissions Act of 2025,' H.R. 4, now heads across the Capitol, where senators say they want to amend it before voting on it later this summer. The upper chamber must act on the bill by July 18, or the funds in question will have to be spent.
House leaders were able to pass the package Thursday despite reluctance from some moderate Republicans, who had expressed concerns about proposed cuts to the public broadcasting budget and a popular AIDS prevention program. The bill passed 214-212.
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'Today's House passage of this initial rescissions package marks a critical step toward a more responsible and transparent government that puts the interests of the American taxpayers first,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
The rescissions, requested by White House budget chief Russ Vought, are based on recommendations from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. They target $8.3 billion in current funding for the State Department and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which would mainly impact local PBS and NPR stations.
'Every dollar spent on woke foreign policy is not only a dollar wasted but is a dollar devoted to tarnish our own nation's image,' said Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), a senior appropriator, during a hearing on the bill earlier this week.
Among the State Department cuts is a $496 million clawback for various international disaster assistance initiatives. The White House has said it would leave intact programs that the administration believes are 'life-saving or have a clear, direct nexus to U.S. national interests.' Officials have not specified which programs would be cut or spared.
Additionally, the bill would repeal the United States' entire $125 million contribution to the international Clean Technology Fund for fiscal 2025.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has said that the rescissions would cancel $6 million for 'net zero cities' in Mexico, $5 million for 'green transportation and logistics in Eurasia,' $2.1 million for 'climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America [and] East Africa' and $500,000 for 'electric buses in Rwanda.'
It's not clear how the rescissions request would target those specific initiatives. They are not explicitly named in Congress' explanatory statement for the fiscal 2024 State-Foreign Operations funding law, which was extended through fiscal 2025. And investments that countries receive for projects under the Clean Technology Fund are not directly tied to donor countries' contributions.
A spokesperson for OMB did not respond to emailed questions before publication.
OMB said in its rescission request to Congress that the repeal would be in line with President Donald Trump's executive order pulling the U.S. out of international climate agreements. It said the Clean Technology Fund 'invests in Green New Deal projects in developing countries that do not reflect America's values or put the American people first.'
Other cuts would go after funding for programs meant to support democracy, global nutrition, LGBTQ people, AIDS prevention and contraception access, as well as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Institute of Peace and public radio broadcasters.
More to come
The package of cuts could be the first of multiple efforts by the White House and congressional Republicans to rescind funding that was already appropriated with bipartisan support in order to save taxpayer dollars and target Democratic priorities.
Democrats say the effort could harm or kill people across the country and around the world. They have blasted it as a dangerous precedent and part of a broader effort to illegally impound, or withhold, funding approved by Congress.
OMB said in a statement of administration policy this week that Trump has 'exercised his authority' under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to request the rescissions in the bill. The White House is claiming those same authorities to unilaterally freeze appropriated funds and may send Congress a spending deferral notice before the end of this Congress.
'These rescissions would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and values, such as funding radical gender ideology, 'equity' programs, and policies that threaten our energy security,' the White House said in the statement.
The public broadcasting cuts would mostly impact locally owned radio and television stations, which many Americans rely on for emergency alerts during and after natural disasters.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) noted during the bill's Rules Committee hearing this week that when Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast last year, 'people were relying on public radio because that's all that existed.'
House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said the cuts to international disaster aid would hurt farmers in Republican-led states whose crops help feed people around the world following extreme weather events.