Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Appropriations

Much-Awaited Omnibus Spending Bill Finally Released

Posted on

 

Nearly three months into the new fiscal year and after months of seemingly little-to-no negotiations,

Congressional leaders released the much-awaited FY2023 omnibus appropriations package late yesterday.  Coming in at more than 4,100 pages, it contains all 12 spending bills for FY2023.  The current short-term government funding measure expires at midnight Saturday and Congressional leaders are working to get the new measure passed before then.

The Office of Federal Relations is in the process of digging through the package and details will emerge throughout the process.  We will share new information contained in the bill along the way.  In the meantime, we wanted to highlight a few of the initial highlights from the bill below:

  • The Pell Grant maximum would increase by $500 and the new maximum would increase to $7,395 for the next academic year.
  • NIH would be funded at $47.5 billion, an increase of $2.5 billion.
  • ARPA-H would see a total of $1.5 billion, which is also authorized, an increased of $500 M. ARPA-H will be administratively within NIH, but the bill prohibits ARPA-H, including its headquarters, from being physically located on any part of the existing NIH campus, and it requires ARPA-H to have offices or facilities in not less than 3 geographic areas. Further, in determining the location of these offices or facilities, the director is required to make “fair and open consideration” of the characteristics of the intended location and the extent to which the location will facilitate the advancement of the goals and functions of the agency.
  • NSF would be funded at $9.87 billion for FY2023, with the appropriators acknowledging that expectations were set for the agency by the CHIPS and Science Act, passed earlier this year.
    • Of the funds allocated to NSF, approximately $7.8 M would be for the Research and Related Activities Account while $1.37 billion would be for the Education and Human Resources Account.
  • Within NASA, which would be funded at $25.4 billion, $7.8 billion would go to Science. Space Grant would be funded at $58 million.
  • NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research would be funded at $661.3 million, which would include funding of $104 million for the cooperative institutes.
  • Base Sea Grant would be funded at $80 million while Sea Grant Aquaculture would see a funding level of $14 million.

With respect to a provision that applies to a host of programs across different departments and agencies, the bill would wave “PAYGO” rules, which would implement mandatory sequester cuts to various programs, for FY2023 and FY2024.

As we said above, we will continue to dig through the legislation and the accompanying reports.  Both are available on the Senate Appropriations Committee webpage here.

 

Congress Passes a CR to Fund the Federal Government through Dec. 16th

Posted on

On September 30th, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) to extend the current funding levels for the federal government through December 16, averting a partial government shutdown and extending time for Congress to agree on and pass the funding bills for FY2023. The CR passed the Senate after Sen. Manchin (D-WV) removed his pipeline permit measure which was opposed by both Republicans and progressive Democrats. In addition to extending the current funding levels, the CR included $17 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine, $19 billion for FEMA for disaster relief, and reauthorized the Food and Drug Administration’s user fee programs, but it did not include President Biden’s request for COVID-19 and monkeypox response funding. 

Both chambers are now in recess until after the midterms after which they will have to return to reach an agreement on the FY23 funding bills. Our office will continue to monitor and publish FY23 activity.   

More information on the continuing resolution can be found here.  

First Package of Funding Bills Adopted by House

Posted on

Yesterday, by a vote of 220 to 207, the House adopted its first set of appropriations bills for FY2023, which starts October 1. The package, H.R.8294, includes six of the twelve spending measures:  Transportation-HUD; Agriculture; Energy and Water; Financial Services; Interior and Environment; and Military Construction/Veterans Affairs.  These bills are considered relatively uncontroversial.

Leadership of the House and the Appropriations Committee are currently strategizing on how or whether to move the other bills that have historically served as venues for debates on more controversial issues and provisions, such as those related to abortion and guns.  

While all twelve bills have at least gone through the committee process in the House, it appears at this point that the Senate will likely bypass that part of the legislative process altogether.  It is expected that the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Patrick Leahy of Vermont will release the Senate versions of the bills in relatively short order and potentially seek ways to move them without committee action.  There still are disagreements between Leahy and Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the committee, on a number of details regarding the FY2023, prompting the chairman to create some movement.

 

 

 

 

FY2023 Spending Bills Set to Start Moving This Week

Posted on

The FY2023 appropriations season is set to kick off this week in the House with a number of Appropriations subcommittees scheduled to take up their respective bills.

Of the bills set to be marked up this week, the defense bill is of the most interest. While the text of the bill has been published, the accompanying report, which contains the details about the measure, is not yet available. We will provide details about this, and other, appropriations measures as they become available.