New CR Finally Introduced as Clock Ticks Down to Friday

Two days later than planned, a new Continuing Resolution was introduced in the House this evening to keep the government operating. Congress has not passed any of the FY2025 appropriations bills and the existing CR expires Friday at midnight. If another CR is not passed before that, government activities funded by the annual appropriations bills will be suspended.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had indicated that a CR to keep the government funded through mid-March would be released on Sunday, but it did not come out until tonight.

The 1,157 page bill includes much more than a simple extension of the current CR, everything from funding for responding to natural disasters to economic aid to farmers to transferring jurisdiction over the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia for 99 years that could enable the Washington Commanders to move back to D.C. from their current venue in suburban Maryland. [The bill would only transfer jurisdiction, not fund the stadium.]

Many House Republicans are dismayed with all the add-ons, which could complicate passage.  According to multiple reports, Johnson had planned to bring the CR to the floor through the Rules Committee, but the majority of that committee’s members are ultra conservative Republicans who might not approve it. He brought previous CRs to the floor under the suspension calendar, which avoids the Rules Committee, but requires a two-thirds vote to pass.

That means getting support from Democrats and negotiating a deal with them apparently was at least part of the reason for the two-day delay.  Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, cited a number of Democratic priorities included in the bill.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) highlighted the bill’s inclusion of $110 billion in disaster assistance and the fact that it  “maintains key policy riders such as pro-life and Second Amendment protections.” He said another CR is “not ideal,” but will allow incoming President Trump to have a “voice in shaping the final FY25 bills” and “averts a costly government shutdown that would only serve to handcuff the start of his new administration.”

Members are supposed to get 72 hours to read a bill before voting on it, but with the Friday deadline looming, it’s not clear if Johnson will abide by that restriction.  The House is scheduled to adjourn for the year on Thursday and a 72-hour wait would push that to Friday and the Senate still needs to pass it by Friday midnight.

A quick glance shows that the bill includes $740 million for NASA to repair facilities damaged by hurricanes and other natural disasters in FY2023 and FY2024. That’s an increase over the $400 million requested in an April 2024 supplemental, which was never acted upon, to repair NASA communications equipment in Guam damaged by Typhoon Mawar in May 2023 and facilities at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California impacted by Hurricane Hilary in August 2023.  Typhoon Mawar also damaged U.S. Space Force equipment in Guam and the CR includes $37.9 million for USSF repairs there, plus another $90 million for USSF recovery from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The bill would extend funding in the 12 annual appropriations bills until March 14, 2025. Under last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act, a one-percent across-the-board automatic spending cut will go into effect if all the appropriations bills are not enacted by April 30, 2025.

Under a CR, departments and agencies are held to their current funding levels and cannot begin new programs or end old ones unless an “anomaly” — exception — is included.  According to a summary, this bill allows NOAA to maintain the acquisition schedule for new geostationary weather satellites.

 

This article has been updated.

Note: This bill was never brought up for consideration (and was not assigned a bill number) because Elon Musk, as co-chair of President-elect Trump’s commission on government efficiency, started a campaign against it on X. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance later joined Musk’s call for Republicans to reject it.  A slimmed down version, H.R. 10515, was introduced, but voted down on December 19 largely because Trump insisted it include a provision suspending the debt limit while President Biden was still in office so it would not happen after Trump was inaugurated. After that bill was defeated, another bill without the debt limit provision, H.R. 10545, passed the House on December 20 and the Senate just after midnight on December 21. President Biden signed it into law later that morning.

The inclusion of the RFK stadium provision in the original bill sparked a lot of controversy, with incorrect assertions that the bill provided funding for the stadium. It would only transfer jurisdiction to D.C. for 99 years. A bill for that purpose, H.R. 4984, had already passed the House in February 2024. Including it in the CR was simply a way to get it through the Senate.  On December 21, the Senate agreed to H.R. 4984 by voice vote, so it did in fact win approval separate from the CR.