House blocks U.S. funding of health law

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday voted to withhold funds for implementing President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul and to block a federal crackdown on for-profit colleges, as part of a Republican plan to cut at least $61 billion in spending this year.

Lawmakers voted 239-187 to bar the use of any federal money on the health-care plan. An amendment passed 240-185 would end funds to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions. A proposal to halt Education Department rules from clamping down on for-profit colleges was accepted 289-136.

The House is continuing to work through a large stack of amendments to the bill. Failure to approve a spending measure when the current plan expires March 4 could lead to a federal government shutdown.

The House planned a final vote on its plan later Friday or today.

A bid by a group of fiscally conservative Republicans to force an additional $22 billion in cuts was defeated 281-147 amid warnings it would force the FBI and other agencies to furlough employees.

“It’s not pleasant to reduce spending. I get that,” said Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, who sponsored the defeated amendment. “This is what the American people sent us here to do. This is what the American people elected 87 freshman Republicans to do, just this sort of thing.”

The $1.2 trillion measure would fund federal agencies for the last seven months of the government’s fiscal year, which expires Sept. 30.

Congress is out of session next week. House Speaker John Boehner signaled Thursday that his colleagues will take a hard line on cuts, saying any temporary extension must reduce spending.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Friday that his colleagues will probably accept about half the amount of spending reductions that House Republicans propose.

The Republican plan “will not be successful in the Sen-ate, even though I think virtually everybody understands we’ve got to cut spending,” Conrad said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital with Al Hunt, airing this weekend.

The House bill aims to fulfill Republicans’ campaign promises to slash federal spending. It would kill more than 100 programs and cut funding for hundreds more. Obama’s budget office has threatened a veto should it reach his desk.

The health-care overhaul is intended to expand health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans and bar insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions. The law, which cleared Congress last year with no Republican support, also allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans up to age 26.

The House voted to repeal the health-care law last month, an effort rejected by the Senate.

“Our efforts - and my amendment - will save billions of wasted funding while opening the door for true health-care reform that reduces costs and improves access,” said Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., who sponsored the amendment.

Democrats said defunding the law would give insurers too much power over Americans’ health care and take away new access to insurance for people with pre-existing conditions.

“Are you the ones who are going to go tell the American people that insurance companies can drop you when you get sick?” said Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.

The Education Department amendment would block the agency’s “gainful employment” rule that would tie for-profit colleges’ eligibility for federal student aidto their graduates’ incomes and loan-repayment rates. Democrats have said forprofit schools often saddle students with large amounts of tuition debt they can’t pay back.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said his measure to cut Planned Parenthood funds means “Congress has taken a stand for millions of Americans who believe their tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the largest abortion provider in America.”

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said it is an “outrageous assault” on an organization millions rely upon for annual cancer screenings, birth control and other health-care services. “For many Americans, our doctors and nurses are the only health-care providers they see,” she said.

Debate over the issue grew intense Thursday night, when Rep. Christopher Smith, RN.J., read a graphic description of a second-trimester abortion procedure on the House floor.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., responded with a speech disclosing having undergone an abortion as her 17-week pregnancy was failing. “For you to stand on this floor and to suggest as you have that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous,” she said.

Lawmakers voted Friday to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from spending any money considering challenges to air-quality permits in the Arctic, a move sponsored by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and aimed at opening the region to more offshore drilling.

“This amendment does not circumvent the EPA’s authority,” Young said on the House floor. “Instead, it continues to give permitting decisions to the professionals in the regional offices. What this amendment will do is remove the ability for lawyers to overrule EPA permit writers.”

Shell announced this month that it will postpone its Arctic drilling program until at least next year because of appeals to an EPA-issued air permit that lets the company move forward with exploratory offshore drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Republicans have pushed ahead with dozens of environmental and land-use amendments, including a successful vote Thursday to curtail the EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, sponsored by three Republican congressmen from Texas.

EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said Friday that the agency had no comment on the Arctic amendment, or any others in the bill, other than the White House statement of administration policy on it, released Tuesday.

“The bill proposes cuts that would sharply undermine core government functions and investments key to economic growth and job creation, and would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements,” the statement said.

Environmental groups, though, have been monitoring the amendment with concern all week. Air-quality standards are in place for a reason, said Lois Epstein, Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society.

“Unbelievably, Congressman Young is pushing for lower air quality for Alaskan communities than the Clean Air Act gives East Coast communities,” she said. “Scaling back safety measures to fast track offshore drilling threatens all of the Arctic - from the communities on shore to the animals that live in the icy waters.” A spokesman for Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said that although he shares Young’s frustrations with the Environmental Appeals Board and the delays it has caused for development in the Arctic, he doesn’t support the amendment.

The House this week also has adopted amendments to kill funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter backup engine, a project supported by Boehner, R-Ohio, and bar the Federal Communications Commission from implementing “net neutrality” rules that would prevent companies led by AT&T Inc. from interfering with subscribers’ Web traffic.

Lawmakers adopted an amendment barring funds for White House “czar” positions including the “pay czar” tasked with enforcing executive-compensation rules for companies that received aid from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Information for this article was contributed by Brian Faler, James Rowley, Catherine Dodge, Dan Parks and Todd Shields of Bloomberg News; by David Espo, Andrew Taylor and Alan Fram of The Associated Press; by Erika Bolstad of the Anchorage Daily News and by Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune Washington Bureau.