Rumors Start about a Continuing Resolution as Congressional Clock Ticks Down

Rumors are circulating that Congress may try to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded after September 30 before they leave for their August recess. Nothing has been decided yet, however. 

The House is moving through the 12 regular FY2015 appropriations bills at a fairly fast clip, but none of them has passed the Senate.  Hopes that three of the bills could be bundled together as a “minibus” and passed by the Senate died last month over a disagreement about the rules for considering amendments during floor debate.  The three bills include two that fund space activities: Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), of which NASA and NOAA are part, and Transportation-HUD bill, which funds the FAA and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation.  The third bill is the Agriculture appropriations.

Congress will be in session this week and next.  Then it will recess for the month of August.  When they return, the House is scheduled to be in session for only 10 days in September and the first two days of October before recessing to campaign for the November elections.   The Senate website does not show how many days it plans to be in session once it returns. 

FY2014 ends on September 30.  If funding bills — individually or as a CR — are not passed by then, the government would have to shut down the unfunded activities.  Last year, most of the government was shut down for 16 days.  Ninety-eight percent of NASA workers were furloughed.

The shutdown, led by Tea Party Republicans, was over Obamacare and government-wide funding levels.  At the time, many Washington pundits argued that the Tea Party lost a lot of support because of the shutdown, but a year later that is not so clear.  The Hill reports today that passing a CR before the August recess “could be a way to squelch any talk of a shutdown before it begins.”