Before the House of Representatives takes a two-month recess, its final votes focuses on a Republican package of pro-coal bills, which dismantle essential water, air, and climate protections.

The White House has threatened to veto the package for its “harmful measures that would undermine landmark environmental laws and adversely affect public health, the economy, and the environment.”

Coal has backed the GOP’s political campaign with heavy spending on TV ads, lobbying and political contributions. Coal and dirty utilities have spent a total $66 million on lobbying since 2011. House Republicans have received $4.4 million in career contributions from the coal industry — nearly 5 times the amount Democratic members received, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data.

In 2012 alone, Republicans received 89 percent of the coal industry’s campaign contributions. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the Energy and Commerce committee, has received $60,000 from both major utilities and the coal industry. Another sponsor, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), is the top recipient of coal cash for 2012, receiving over $200,000.

The coal industry has also waged a separate “public awareness” campaign on pro-coal TV ads. The American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity has so far spent $12 million of its promised $40 million election-year budget on ads this cycle. So far, total fossil fuel spending has exceeded $153 million.

Backed by a pile of corporate polluter cash, House Republicans and the Romney campaign have rallied around the myth that the administration is waging a “war on coal.” Instead of focusing on the slew of bills needing action, the GOP has waged a messaging campaign to oppose safeguards for public health against air pollution.

The GOP’s campaign is a giveaway to big polluters. It’s a plan that does nothing to moving energy policy forward — only threatening public health:

– It undermines clean air, clean water protections The package blocks EPA greenhouse gas regulation, prevents the EPA from regulating mercury, arsenic, smog, and coal ash from power plants. One bill repeals mercury standards that prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 5,000 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 5,700 hospital visits annually. The legislation also threatens water quality by stripping the Department of Interior’s and EPA’s strip mining regulation and protections in the Clean Water Act.

– Selectively edits out health concerns, science: Ignoring overwhelming scientific consensus, H.R. 910 declares that carbon pollution is not a danger to health and the climate. In the latest version of legislation blocking EPA carbon pollution standards, the House Energy and Power Subcommittee deleted a mild climate change mention, which said the U.S. plays a role “in resolving global climate change matters on an international basis.” On Thursday, the Energy and Commerce Committee heard from a hearing witness that carbon pollution is good for the environment, because it is “plant food.”

–Public health standards will create jobs: A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) calls the package “jobs legislation.” But the same health standards Republicans oppose create tens of thousands more jobs in the manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of modern pollution reduction equipment. EPA protections against mercury would create a net 84,500 jobs by 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, coal mining jobs in West Virginia reached a two-decade record in 2011. In Pennsylvania and Virginia, data shows a 2.3 percent increase and 6.7 percent increase in coal mining employment from 2009 to 2010.

The GOP’s effort could end up hurting the coal industry more by opposing technology that reduce the industry’s carbon pollution so it complies with the Clean Air Act. For instance, McKinley’s bill would prevent the EPA from reducing carbon pollution from power plants — the largest uncontrolled source — until the pollution control technology is economical. But that will never happen without a market for it, which requires some sort of pollution reduction regime.

– Makes U.S. more dependent on foreign oil: H.R. 3409 blocks new fuel economy standards that will save the U.S. 3 million barrels of oil daily and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. These standards will reduce U.S. oil use, so blocking them will maintain our demand for foreign oil. The standards would also save the average driver a net of $4,400 on lower gasoline purchases over the life of a 2025 car.

With this package, House Republicans will add to their 302 votes against the environment, including 87 efforts to dismantle the Clean Air Act, 34 against the Clean Water Act, and 128 against pollution measures.

Following the toxic coal ash disaster of Christmas 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been developing long-neeeded rules for coal ash disposal, after decades of ignoring the dangers. The Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG) has claimed that strict regulation of ash disposal could lead to the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. An independent analysis by economist Frank Ackerman finds the industry claim “simply unbelievable,” because he discovered “arithmetic errors,” “wild extrapolation,” and a “groundless claim about potential losses due to the stigma of regulation.”

When Ackerman reconstructed the job-impact analysis of strict coal ash regulation that compares the employment costs of higher electricity prices to the employment benefits of increased spending on coal ash safety, he discovered that there would be a net increase of 28,000 jobs:

This report presents a new analysis of employment effects, based on an industry estimate of the costs of regulation that is much higher than the EPA’s cost calculation. The cost estimate I use was, in fact, developed for another industry group by the same consultants who claimed that more than 300,000 jobs would be lost.

Using that industry estimate for the cost of regulation and the well-known IMPLAN model of the U.S. economy, I show that the effect of the new spending required by strict regulation of coal ash, including expenditures for waste management, wastewater treatment, and construction and operation of facilities and equipment, combined with the impact of the resulting electricity rate increases on consumers, would be a net gain of 28,000 jobs.

Job impacts are not the only basis on which to judge new regulatory proposals. The debate should center on the magnitude and importance of the health and environmental benefits that would result, and the reasonableness of the costs of achieving those benefits. The fact that strict regulation of coal ash disposal would create a net increase of 28,000 jobs doesn’t, by itself, clinch the argument for such regulation. But it does free us of the unfounded fear of massive job loss, allowing us to evaluate the regulation on its merits.

In Congress, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) has been pushing a bill to strip the EPA of the authority to regulate coal ash. The Recycling Coal Combustion Residuals Accessibility Act of 2011 (HR 1391) passed out of subcommittee in June but has not been taken up for consideration by the full House.

Ackerman is the Director of the Climate Economics Group at the Stockholm Environment Institute-United States at Tufts University.

Republicans have officially unveiled a slash-and-burn budget plan for the environment, with drastic cuts to environmental agencies and numerous riders to exempt polluters from science-based regulation. The House Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2012 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, to be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation includes major cuts in funding for the Department of the Interior, the EPA, the Forest Service, and various independent and related agencies.

This Tea Party budget eviscerates protections for air, water, and land while delivering industry lobbyists a grab-bag of favors. The bill denies not only the threat of global warming pollution, but also that of formaldehyde, coal ash, and pesticides. The bill cuts EPA funding by $1.8 billion, or 20 percent, below President Obama’s request, and caps employment at 1992 levels. The bill restores $55 million in offshore oil and gas subsides. The bill overrules the Department of Interior’s provisional decision to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining (Sec. 445).

Some of the many riders in the budget bill include:

OFFSHORE DRILLING POLLUTION

– A provision expanding permitting activities for the Outer Continental Shelf, and restricting EPA rules for air pollution on exploration permits (Sec. 433)

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the Office of Surface Mining from moving forward with proposed updates to the “stream buffer rule” (Sec. 432)

– A provision prohibiting federal agencies from working together on mountaintop removal permitting (Sec. 433)

– A provision prohibiting funds for defining coal ash as hazardous waste (Sec. 434)

GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION

– A provision instituting a one-year prohibition on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources (Sec. 431)

– A provision providing exemptions from greenhouse gas reporting for certain agricultural activities (Sec. 429)

– A provision prohibiting greenhouse gas permitting for livestock emissions (Sec. 428)

– A provision requiring the president report on all executive-branch spending related to climate change in 2011 and 2012 (Sec. 426)

WATER AND CHEMICAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the EPA from changing the definition of “navigable waterways” under the Clean Water Act (Sec. 435)

– A provision prohibiting funds for the EPA from expanding storm water discharge requirements (Sec. 439)

– A provision restricting EPA regulation of formaldehyde (Sec. 444)