News and updates

As Congress returns this week (the Senate reconvened on Tuesday while the House comes back on the 11th) after the August recess, there remains significant work to pass the FY24 appropriations bills. In order to prevent a government shut down on September 30th when funding ends, Congress needs to either pass the 12 appropriations bills or pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR) which keeps spending at its current levels so that Congress can have more time to pass the bills this fall. Leaders in both chambers have signaled agreement that a continuing resolution will be necessary to allow more time, but it is unclear if the CR will include additional policy provisions that could endanger its passage.

Where we’re at right now: The Senate has marked up and passed all 12 of its spending bills out of committee but none have been considered yet on the Senate floor. Senate leadership has signaled that they may bring them to the Senate floor this week. The House has marked up and passed in committee 10 of its spending bills but have not considered any on the House floor yet. The House still needs to markup the Labor-HHS-Education bill and Commerce-Justice-Science bill – both of which are important to UW and the higher education community. The Senate is using topline numbers agreed upon in the debt deal brokered earlier this year, while House Republicans have been using a lower number which means that there will be significant work required to reach any agreement. The debt deal brokered earlier this year includes a 1 percent across-the-board funding cut that would take effect next year if the government is still operating under any kind of short-term CR.

Read more about this here and view our FY24 Appropriations tracker here.

Late last week the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released their annual budget planning memo FY2025-OMB-OSTP-RD-Budget-Priorities-Memo.pdf (whitehouse.gov).  The memo emphasizes that federal research and development is integral to the just, vibrant, and ambitious future that America seeks and identifies key priority highlights including: AI, Global Security, Climate Research, Improving Health Outcomes, Reducing Barriers and Inequities, and Bolstering Industrial Innovation. The memo states that funding choices will be required given constrained discretionary funding caps, emphasizing that agencies should clearly state how funding relates to these key priorities.

Congress left for its annual August recess without passing any of its 12 fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations bills, creating an uncertain outlook for how the process will proceed this fall. While the Senate Appropriations Committee approved all 12 of its bills, the House Appropriations Committee moved only 10 of its 12 measures, withholding full committee markup of the Commerce, Justice, and Science and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bills. Further complicating the prospects for action on final FY 2024 spending measures is that the House and Senate committees are marking up their bills using different topline discretionary spending numbers —  the Senate using the full amount allowed by the recent debt ceiling agreement and the House voluntarily using a lower topline level. It remains to be seen how the two chambers will reconcile these differences, with a continuing resolution (CR) almost certain to be necessary to keep the government functioning prior to the start of FY 2024 on October 1. Negotiations over final FY 2024 spending bills are likely to extend late into the calendar year, if not into 2024. In the meantime, follow along with the process using our FY24 appropriations tracker, linked here.