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House Sends FY14 Omnibus Bill to Senate

Yesterday the House approved the $1.1 trillion FY14 omnibus spending bill that remains true to the intent of December’s budget agreement and sets a new tone for the FY15 appropriations cycle. 

Adopted by 359-67, the strong bipartisan support in the House should help build momentum next in the Senate where lawmakers are racing against a clock that requires final action by Saturday when the short-term continuing resolution expires. Senate leadership is hoping for an expedited process and vote on Friday but the GOP could refuse and push the final vote to Saturday.

The Office of Federal Relations is drafting a comprehensive analysis of the FY14 omnibus and will release that information tomorrow. And with final passage, we will shortly complete our FY15 federal agenda. More to come on that in the coming weeks.

FY2014 Omnibus Released

Appropriators unveiled the FY2014 Omnibus Appropriations bill today. This legislation will provide discretionary funding for the entire federal government for the remainder of the current fiscal year. As drafted, the omnibus package fully respects the contours set in December but adds hundreds of pages in detail, spelling out where the dollars will actually go.

The omnibus contains all 12 regular appropriations bills for FY2014, with no area of the government functioning under a Continuing Resolution (CR). This allows every program to be weighed individually and prioritized. The release of this bill ends more than six weeks of negotiations within the appropriations committees. Leaders in both chambers hope to take quick action on the bill and send it to the President by this weekend.

Even though the omnibus legislation has been released, Congress will enact a short term CR to give both chambers time to take action on the measure. Tomorrow Congress will take action on a 3-day CR, moving the deadline from January 15th to January 18th.

Highlights

The Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education portion of the omnibus includes $156.8 billion in discretionary funding, which is $100 million below the FY2013 enacted level, and approximately $9 billion below the President’s budget request for these programs. The bill halts any new funding for the Affordable Care Act.

The bill includes $29.9 billion for the NIH, $1 billion above the FY2013 level. This funding will continue support for basic bio-medical research and translational research through the programs like the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) and Institutional Development Award (IDeA) to support scientists as they conduct research to discover cures. Further, it provides full support for the NIH Office of Science Education and programs like the Science Education and Partnership Awards (SEPA) to support bio-medical research for the future.

The maximum Pell Grant award is increased to $5,730, funded by a combination of discretionary and mandatory funds.

The bill denies the Administration’s Preschool Development Grants and Race to the Top College Affordability programs. Instead, the bill makes targeted investments in an existing program for states to improve access to high-quality, early childhood education.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funded at $17.6 billion in the bill, an increase of $120 million above the FY2013 enacted level. Within this total, $4.1 billion is provided for Exploration, including funding to keep NASA on schedule for upcoming Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System flight program milestones.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is funded at $850 million, which is $41 million above the FY2013 enacted level. Within this total, important core research activities are funded to help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth.

The legislation contains $5.3 billion for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is $310 million above the base FY2013 enacted level, excluding supplemental funding. This includes funding for the National Weather Service to provide critical weather information to the public, and for various weather satellites essential to maintaining and improving weather forecasts and warnings.

The legislation funds the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $7.2 billion, a decrease of $82 million below the FY2013 enacted level. This funding is targeted to programs that help strengthen U.S. innovation and economic competitiveness, including funding for an advanced manufacturing science initiative, and for research in cybersecurity and cyber- infrastructure.

The measure includes $1.9 billion for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs – placing priority on advanced manufacturing and weatherization assistance. This funding will make responsible investments in effective and proven programs, while holding the line on irresponsible increases in other areas. This total is $874 million – or 32% – below the President’s request.

The bill includes $5.1 billion for science research, an increase of $195 million (4%) above the FY2013 enacted level. This funding will help strengthen innovation and advance future American competitiveness by supporting basic energy research, development of high-performance computing systems, and research into the next generation of clean energy sources. Within this amount, the bill restores many of the cuts to the fusion energy program that the President had proposed.

In total, the Defense portion of the Omnibus is $486.9 billion, virtually the same as the current operating level. The bill contains $63.0 billion – $6.9 billion below the FY2013 enacted level – for research, development, test, and evaluation of new defense technologies (basic and applied research, system development, and testing).

Read more about the omnibus bill here.

FY2014 Omnibus Stalled

Congressional leaders are trying to finalize a FY2014 omnibus spending package and have agreement on six of the 12 appropriations measures that cover discretionary spending for federal programs. Despite the progress, lingering disagreements are making it increasingly likely that a draft of a final agreement won’t make it to House and Senate leaders until possibly over the weekend. That means Congress could miss a January 15th deadline for final passage and need a short-term stopgap spending measure to avert another government shutdown.

Lawmakers had hoped that the two-year budget deal negotiated by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and approved by Congress in December would allow appropriators to iron out their differences and move quickly on a spending bill. The omnibus bill currently being negotiated will dole out the $1.012 trillion top-line budget number from December’s deal to each of the 12 areas of federal spending.

The six parts that are reportedly completed are the Defense; Agriculture; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Legislative Branch; and Commerce, Justice and Science bills. The Energy-Water and Homeland Security portions of the package are nearing completion. However, talks on other measures – such as Labor-HHS-Education, Interior, State-Foreign Operations, and Financial Services – have been complicated by ongoing disagreements such as funding for the 2010 health care law, the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, and abortion policy.

FY2014 Appropriations Update

Happy New Year! After a short break for the holidays, Congress will return to Washington, DC next week to resume work on FY2014 appropriations before the current CR runs out on January 15th. House and Senate Appropriations committee staff worked through the holidays to try to pull together a draft omnibus bill, a legislative package that would combine all 12 spending bills into one large piece of legislation. About half of the 12 bills – those covering the Departments of Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Defense, Veterans Affairs, and major science agencies – have been largely finalized. But some of the remaining bills are controversial and appropriators may not be able to come to agreement on overall funding for those agencies, including Labor-HHS-Education and Interior. If they can’t come to some agreement to include funding for these agencies in the omnibus they will likely advance a yearlong CR providing level funding. We should have confirmation one way or another by the middle of next week.

Progress on FY2014 Appropriations

Appropriators continue to work on FY2014 spending bills with the hopes of advancing an omnibus bill that incorporates funding for the 12 annual spending bills. If an agreement cannot be reached on one or more of the 12 measures, appropriators will instead advance a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the affected agencies.

It is still not clear how the new $1.012 trillion dollar budget will be divided among the 12 spending measures. These allocations have been assigned to each subcommittee but so far none have been made public and probably won’t be until the draft omnibus is released next week sometime. This leaves little time for lawmakers to approve a spending package as the current CR expires on January 15th. House and Senate procedures mean even earlier deadlines as they are required to give members time to review the legislation before they vote.