Congress

Environmentalists are raising concerns that possible attempts by sporting groups to add voluntary cleanup protections to a House mining reform bill would create jurisdictional conflicts in Congress that could complicate promising efforts to move the legislation in the current Congress.

House Democrats are accusing EPA of making misleading claims about the complexity of pending cleanups at toxic waste sites in an effort to preserve a $27 million increase for Superfund cleanups contained in the agency's pending fiscal year 2008 spending bill, which President Bush has threatened to veto, Capitol Hill sources say.

The showdown between President Bush and congressional Democrats over federal spending limits in fiscal year 2008 could force lawmakers to scale back proposed funding increases for key Democratic policy priorities, including huge increases for EPA's clean water state revolving loan fund (SRF) and new funding for an EPA-led climate change commission, Capitol Hill sources say.

Officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) are preparing to meet with EPA and other federal officials to determine why in-fighting among EPA officials has delayed the release of a controversial risk review framework, which would give other federal agencies a first-time formal role in reviewing agency risk studies.

GAO is focusing on the delay as part of an ongoing investigation into EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a comprehensive database of risk information that regulators use to set cleanup and other levels.