Congress Votes to Keep Government Open Through December 9

The Senate and House both passed a FY2017 Continuing Resolution (CR) today that will keep the government operating through December 9, 2016.  Without it, government agencies would have had to shut down at midnight Friday, September 30, the end of fiscal year 2016.  The President is expected to sign the bill.

Government departments and agencies like NASA, NOAA and DOD are funded through a set of 12 appropriations bills that provide money one fiscal year at a time.  A U.S. fiscal year is October 1 – September 30.   If the bills are not passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, their operations must cease other than exceptions for life and safety, for example.

When the 12 regular appropriations bills are not passed in time, Congress typically passes a CR that funds the departments and agencies at their previous year’s levels for a set period.   In this case, that is through December 9.  By then, Congress must either pass another CR or, hopefully, the full year appropriations bills.  This CR actually includes the full-year FY2017 Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) appropriations bill, leaving 11 of the 12 regular bills to be passed later.

The CR also includes funding to combat the Zika virus domestically and internationally, to respond to flooding in Louisiana and other states, and several other specialized needs. 

Details of the legislation, H.R. 5325 as amended, are posted on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s website.  (Note that previous action on H.R. 5325 is not relevant.  That bill, which began as the FY2017 Legislative Branch appropriations bill, simply is being used as the legislative vehicle for the CR.  The original text was deleted and this new text was substituted.) 

The bill’s full title is “Continuing Appropriations and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017, and Zika Response and Preparedness Act.”

The President’s FY2017 requested funding levels for NASA and NOAA are not so different from their current funding levels that a short-term CR like this one is not expected to make much difference on a day-to-day basis.