Category: On the Hill

The month of March has been a busy one in Washington, D.C. On March 1^st sequestration went into effect after Congress failed to come to agreement on long-term deficit reduction, and last week both the House and Senate approved their respective budget resolutions that address overall spending for federal government for FY 2014. And, finally, Congress took action on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the remaining six months of FY 2013, just a week before the current CR expires on March 27^th. Congress is now enjoying a two-week recess period before returning to work on April 8^th, the same day that President Obama is to release his FY 2014 budget request, two months later than usual because of all of the fiscal uncertainty in Congress.

This Federal Update will focus on these fiscal issues, and also take a look ahead at the congressional agenda for spring. Continue reading “Federal Update, March 2013”

Yesterday, the Senate passed HR 933, a continuing resolution to fund federal government for the remainder of FY 2013. That bill now moves back to the House for final approval, which should take place today before being sent to the President for signature. While the CR does not eliminate sequestration, it does provide some federal agencies with more flexibility as to how they implement their cuts. And some programs will receive extra funds that may reduce the immediate impacts of sequestration. The National Institutes of Health will get an extra $71 million from the Senate bill, only partly offsetting the $1.5 billion cut that must happen in NIH’s estimated $31 billion budget due to sequestration. The National Science Foundation will also get a boost of $221 million to $7.2 billion even as they must cut about $360 million from their budget.

With the final passage of the CR today, this is likely the end of any discussions to eliminate or replace the sequester for this year.

Both the House and Senate will spend most of today focusing on their respective FY 2014 budget resolutions as they try to get those measures approved before they begin their two-week recess period on Friday. The budget resolution provides instructions to the appropriations committees in both chambers as to how much each federal agency will have to spend for the upcoming fiscal year. Appropriators use these guidelines to craft spending bills for the upcoming fiscal year that direct how each agency must use their funds. The House and Senate budget plans will likely establish different overall spending priorities making it difficult for appropriators in both chambers to come to resolution on final bills by September 30^th.

The Senate is still struggling to get the FY 2013 continuing resolution (CR) approved, which now looks like it may happen on Thursday. That will leave little time to consider the FY 2014 budget resolution. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said that he is planning to keep members in session until they complete work on the budget resolution even if it means working through the weekend or into next week. Congress is scheduled to begin a two-week recess period starting this Friday.

Meanwhile, the House is scheduled to take action on their FY 2014 budget resolution today. The two chambers have wildly different budget measures to consider, which will make reconciliation between the two very challenging. The House plan is written to balance the budget in 10 years and cut the deficit by $5.7 trillion between FY 2014 to FY 2023. The Senate plan would cut the deficit by only $1.8 trillion over 10 years. But even if the House completes their work on the budget before Friday, they will need to stick around to take final action on the CR that the Senate is still debating since they can’t go home without also acting on the stopgap measure, which is required to avoid government shutdown before the current CR expires on March 27^th.

The CR is critical at this point as federal agencies are looking to that legislation to help them adapt to across-the-board spending cuts required by the sequester. Neither chamber has made attempts to overturn sequestration, but instead the focus has been to update the base from which the cuts are made by providing departments with more detailed full-year appropriations. This will give some agencies some flexibility in implementing cuts.