New rules narrowly adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives will promote cuts to environmental and public health programs, and make it easier to give away federal lands for development.

In theory, the House Rules package put forth by the majority Republican Caucus lays out the House procedural rules for the session. In reality, according to citizen conservation advocates, these new rules also deliver an anti-environment, anti-public lands bias to the entire federal budgeting process. 

“This Rules Package goes far beyond just organizing the first session of the 118th House of Representatives: it lays the groundwork for draconian cuts to spending on critical environmental and public health programs, it makes it easier to give away the nation’s public lands at significant cost to the American public, and it guts the bipartisan Office of Congressional Ethics at a time when it is sorely needed,” read an open letter to House members from five national citizen groups. 

The five national citizen groups co-signing the letter of opposition to the rules were the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and Public Citizen. LCV indicated it will “strongly consider” including the rules vote on its National Environmental Scorecard for 2023.

More specifically, the letter notes that the new rules manipulate proposed spending cuts in such a way that promotes the retreat to Trump-era reductions in environmental and health agencies’ staff and funding; but allows the giveaway of federal public lands to development, fossil fuel, and other special interests without compensation to the public. No matter how you try to disguise such a move, it’s bad for our country.