The payroll tax bill sent by House Republicans to the U.S. Senate included two polluter poison pills, the Keystone XL provision for the oil industry and Boiler MACT language to protect toxic coal pollution. In an underreported move, the Senate stripped the coal poison pill. Now GOP members of the House are “committed” to put coal back in the Christmas stocking. They are willing to let the extension of the payroll tax cut die to attack the so-called Boiler MACT rules that would save tens of thousands of lives a year, according to The Hill and Politico:

– Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH): “We are committed to the House-passed bill, including the boiler MACT language.”

– House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) told The Hill that “he’d seek inclusion of the boiler MACT language in a final deal.”

– Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA): “We are hoping that does stay in.”

– Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH): “There were voices saying we should amend the Senate bill and put boiler MACT back in and send it back to them last night.”

– Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA): “Certainly I’d hope that we’d be able to get it in but, that being said, I understand the fluidity of negotiations and we’ll just have to see.”

Boehner, Upton, Murphy, LaTourette, and Griffith have received a combined $1,789,000 in contributions from the coal industry since 1999.

Republican leadership in Congress have decided to use must-pass payroll tax cut legislation as a vehicle to push key polluter priorities, despite a veto threat from the White House. House GOP have attached a rider to extend a Clean Air Act loophole for the coal industry, daring a White House veto. The coal-powered poison pill, inserted into Title I, Section B of H.R. 3630 as the “EPA Regulatory Relief Act,” would establish a five-year delay in Boiler Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT) rules, striking down four Environmental Protection Agency rules. Section A is Rep Lee Terry’s (R-NE) Keystone XL poison pill rider for the oil industry.

The Boiler MACT language, taken from Rep. Morgan Griffith’s (R-VA) bill H.R. 2250, would keep in place a long-standing loophole in the Clean Air Act, that exempted coal-fired “utility boilers” from regulations of their hazardous air pollutants like heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, chromium, and nickel; and acid gases, including hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride; and particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides.

In October, as the House voted to pass Griffith’s bill and H.R. 2681, a related bill to exempt cement plants from clean air laws, as stand-alone legislation, the White House issued a veto threat of the attempt to “undermine public health protections under the Clean Air Act (CAA).”

Today, the White House issued a new veto threat for H.R. 3630, the payroll tax cut bill including this poison pill:

H.R. 3630 seeks to put the burden of paying for the bill on working families, while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies.

This rider, like the Keystone XL provision, is genuinely a poison pill. “For each year of delay,” the U.S. Climate Action Network noted, “thousands of people will die.”

However, both Griffith’s bill and its Senate counterpart, S. 1392, enjoy broad support in Congress. The legislation passed the House by a vote of 275-142, with no Republican opposition and 41 Democrats in support. The Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), has 40 co-sponsors in total, including twelve Democrats: Wyden, Mark Begich (AK), Kay Hagan (NC), Herb Kohl (WI), Mary Landrieu (LA), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Bill Nelson (FL), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), and Jim Webb (VA).

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Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing hard for two polluter poison-pill provisions in the payroll tax cut extension bill. Guaranteeing a year-end flood of contributions from the fossil fuel industry, the GOP has attached language to override the Obama administration’s actions on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and air-pollution rules for industrial boilers, known as the Boiler MACT rules. In a striking but incomplete victory for the climate movement, the Obama administration has extended the review of the Keystone XL pipeline until 2013. Fighting intense polluter lobbyist pressure, EPA has announced watered-down Boiler MACT rules that exempt 99 percent of industrial boilers from having stricter limits on mercury, dioxin, particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, and carbon monoxide.

If passed, these love-letters to the oil and coal industries would be devastating to public health and the environment, risking infant brain damage and poisoned aquifers.

On Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) admitted the Keystone XL and Boiler MACT poison pills threaten the passage of the payroll bill. He told Wallace that the payroll tax cut extension “obviously” will pass, but claimed Republicans have added these pollution poison pills on a “bipartisan basis“:

But we also need to have something in there that prevents the loss of jobs and something that will create the jobs. And that’s why we inserted Boiler MACT, supported on a bipartisan basis and the Keystone pipeline supported on a bipartisan basis. One would save jobs, one would create jobs right now.

McConnell is technically not lying about the bipartisan support, as there are a handful of Democrats who have cast their lot in with polluter interests instead of people’s health like the Republicans on both issues. However, neither the Keystone nor Boiler MACT poison pills would save or create jobs — studies have found that the economic and societal impact of their increased pollution would far outweigh any short-term benefits of allowing polluters to keep dumping waste into the atmosphere and water without consequence.

President Obama has said unequivocally that he will “reject” any attempt to include the Keystone language in the payroll bill, but has not issued a similar veto threat on Boiler MACT.