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Continuing Resolution Released

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) just released the text of a short-term continuing resolution. Immediately following that announcement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered that CR as a substitute amendment to H.J.Res.61 and filed cloture on the amendment. That cloture vote is expected to occur Thursday afternoon at a time to be determined. That vote is expected to fail with Democrats voting against it.

Majority Leader McConnell will then strip out the Planned Parenthood defunding provision and the Senate would vote on a clean CR. Procedurally, they would have to take at least one additional cloture vote to advance the clean CR, which could occur over the weekend with final passage possibly delayed into next week. Assuming that clean CR passes, the House next week will have to decide whether to accept it and keep the government open or reject it, leading to a shutdown.

The proposed CR would keep government operating through December 11, 2015. It provides funding for all discretionary programs at the FY2015 levels, except for a very small number of anomalies, such as an additional $700 million to fight wildfires.  It contains a small across-the-board cut of 0.2108 percent to keep total funding under the FY2016 budget caps.

For more details see on the substance:

FY2016 Continuing Resolution One-Pager

FY2016 Continuing Resolution Section-by-Section Analysis

FY2016 Continuing Resolution Legislation