Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014  |
| Full title | Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes. |
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| Introduced in | 113th United States Congress |
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| Introduced on | September 10, 2013 |
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| Sponsored by | Rep. Harold Rogers (R, KY-5) |
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| Number of co-sponsors | 0 |
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| Effects and codifications |
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| Act(s) affected | Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, Social Security Act, Public Health Service Act, Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2013, and others |
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| U.S.C. section(s) affected | 31 U.S.C. § 1513 , 22 U.S.C. § 2412 , 50 U.S.C. § 3094(a)(1) , 7 U.S.C. § 1736b , 40 U.S.C. § 14704 , and others |
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| Agencies affected | United States Department of Agriculture, United States Department of the Interior, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Department of Defense |
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| Legislative history |
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The Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 (H.J.Res. 59) is a bill that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on September 10, 2013. The original text of the bill was for a continuing resolution that would make continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2014 United States federal budget. [1] Though versions of the bill passed each house of Congress, the House and Senate were not able to reconcile the bills and pass a compromise measure.
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they comprise the legislature of the United States.
In the United States, a continuing resolution is a type of appropriations legislation. An appropriations bill is a bill that appropriates money to specific federal government departments, agencies, and programs. The money provides funding for operations, personnel, equipment, and activities. Regular appropriations bills are passed annually, with the funding they provide covering one fiscal year. The fiscal year is the accounting period of the federal government, which runs from October 1 to September 30 of the following year. When Congress and the president fail to agree on and pass one or more of the regular appropriations bills, a continuing resolution can be passed instead. A continuing resolution continues the pre-existing appropriations at the same levels as the previous fiscal year for a set amount of time. Continuing resolutions typically provide funding at a rate or formula based on the previous year's funding. The funding extends until a specific date or regular appropriations bills are passed, whichever comes first. There can be some changes to some of the accounts in a continuing resolution. The continuing resolution takes the form of a joint resolution, and may provide bridging funding for existing federal programs at current, reduced, or expanded levels.
The 2014 United States federal budget is the budget to fund government operations for the fiscal year (FY) 2014, which began on October 1, 2013 and ended on September 30, 2014.
The original continuing resolution passed the House on September 20. When it first passed the House, the bill included provisions that would defund the Affordable Care Act. The Senate refused to adopt the resolution because of those provisions, and amended the bill to remove them before passing it. The House replaced the provisions that would defund the Affordable Care Act. The Senate refused to take up the measure and no continuing resolution of any kind was passed. This resulted in the government shutdown that began on October 1. A different bill, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, was signed into law on October 17, 2013 and ended the shutdown.
The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 is a law used to resolve both the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 and the United States debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. After the Republican-led House of Representatives could not agree on an originating resolution to end the government crisis, as had been agreed, the Democratic-led Senate used bill H.R. 2775 to resolve the impasse and to satisfy the Origination Clause requirement of Article One of the United States Constitution, which requires that revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Traditionally, appropriation bills also originate in the House of Representatives.
Two months later, the bill became the vehicle for the compromise budget proposal of Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray, known as the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. The bill was amended to completely replace the existing text of H.J.Res. 59 with the text of the "Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013."
Paul Davis Ryan is an American politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from October 2015 to January 2019. He was also the 2012 vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, running alongside Mitt Romney and lost.
Patricia Lynn Murray is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Washington, a seat she was first elected to in 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, Murray is Washington State's first female U.S. Senator.
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 is a federal statute concerning spending and the budget in the United States, that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 26, 2013. On December 10, 2013, pursuant to the provisions of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 calling for a joint budget conference to work on possible compromises, Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray announced a compromise that they had agreed to after extended discussions between them. The law raises the sequestration caps for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, in return for extending the imposition of the caps into 2022 and 2023, and miscellaneous savings elsewhere in the budget. Overall, the bill is projected to lower the deficit by $23 billion over the long term.
Provisions
This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source. [1]
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), known as Congress's think tank, is a public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works primarily and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis.
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.
The Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 would make continuing appropriations for FY2014 for the United States federal government. The bill would appropriate amounts for continuing operations, projects, or activities which were conducted in FY2013 and for which appropriations, funds, or other authority were made available in: [1]
- the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013 (division A of P.L. 113-6);
- the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013 (division B of P.L. 113-6);
- the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2013 (division C of P.L. 113-6);
- the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2013 (division D of P.L. 113-6);
- the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013 (division E of P.L. 113-6); and
- The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (division F of P.L. 113-6).
The bill would require the rate for operations for each account to be calculated to reflect the full amount of any reduction required in FY2013 pursuant to: [1]
- any provision of division G of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (P.L. 113-6); and
- the presidential sequestration order dated March 1, 2013, except as attributable to budget authority made available by: (1) the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2013 (P.L. 112-175); or (2) the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (P.L. 113-2).
The bill would also provide funding under this joint resolution until whichever of the following first occurs: (1) enactment of an appropriation for any project or activity provided for in it; (2) enactment of the applicable appropriations Act for FY2014 without any provision for such project or activity; or (3) December 15, 2013. The Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 would also authorize continuation of other specified activities (including those for entitlements and other mandatory payments) through such date. [1]
The bill would allow amounts made available for the Department of Commerce—National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)--Procurement, Acquisition and Construction to be apportioned up to the rate for operations necessary to maintain the planned launch schedules for the Joint Polar Satellite System and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system. [1]
Finally, the bill would make appropriations for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, a former Senator from New Jersey. [1]
Procedural history
The Senate's first response
The Senate was expected to debate the bill during the afternoon of September 23, 2013. The Senate Democrats were expected to try to remove the language from the bill that defunds the Affordable Care Act, while Senate Republicans were expected to oppose such a move. Senator Mike Lee said on Meet the Press that Senate Republicans push to the verge of a government shutdown, but that "the government will be funded." The House cancelled a planned week of recess with the expectation that they would receive a revised version of the bill back from the Senate during that time. [6] The Senate worked on the bill from September 23 to September 27. [5] On September 27, the Senate voted in Roll Call Vote 209 54-44 to amend the bill to remove the language that defunded the Affordable Care Act. That vote was made after a vote to move forward with working on the bill, one which many Republicans voted in favor of. This maneuver allowed the Senate to vote on the bill, even with the Affordable Care Act provisions removed, in order to send the bill back to the House. The Senate Republican leadership made this decision to avoid Senate Republicans from being blamed for the, then potential, government shutdown by leaving the next move up to the House. [7] Republicans were split on the move, however, with 25 Republicans voting in favor of ending debate (thus allowed a vote on the bill) and 19 voting against it (which would prevent the Democrats from easily rewriting the bill to remove the Affordable Care Act provisions). The Republicans opposed to this were primarily led by Senator Ted Cruz. All Republicans did vote against the final passage of the law, once the Affordable Care Act provisions had been stripped out, a sign, according to Senate Minority Leader McConnell, that Republicans were unified in their opposition to the Affordable Care Act itself. [8]
That afternoon, after the bill had been passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Senate would not be working on the legislation any more, so if the House wanted to avoid a shutdown, they would have to approve the Senate version. In addition to removing the Affordable Care Act provisions, the Senate version would also only fund the government until November 15, 2013. Reid made this announcement when he closed the Senate for the weekend, to reopen at 2pm on Monday, September 30, 2013. [9]
Second House version
On Saturday, September 28, 2013, the House met in order to respond to the Senate's amended version of H.J.Res 59. The debate was contentious. That afternoon, the House Republicans released the text of two amendments they planned to offer to the version of the bill they had received from the Senate. [10] One amendment would delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act for one year, while the other amendment would repeal the 2.3% tax on medical devices. Together, they would also change the bill to fund the government through December 15, 2013, instead of November 15, 2013, as the Senate preferred. The Republican leadership set up a meeting for 8:30 pm that evening to let Republican members know about the bill and their strategy, with the expectation that the vote would happen later that evening. According to one Republican staffer, the strategy the House Republican leadership was pursuing was to get the bill passed as quickly as possible in order to do two things. First, they hoped that the speed at which the House was working and passing legislation would contrast well with the Senate's slower pace. Second, they thought that if Senator Cruz and his supporters in the Senate were unable to get the House's version passed in the Senate, they would be blamed for the government shutdown, instead of the House Republicans receiving the blame. [11]
In the very early morning on Sunday, September 29, 2013, the House voted in favor of the newly amended H.J. Res 59, sending it back to the Senate after adopting both amendments. The Senate Majority Leader announced that it was "dead" in the upper chamber and President Obama threatened to veto it. [12] This occurred approximately 48 hours before the government would have been shut down if an agreement was not reached.
Senate and House reactions
The Senate responded by again removing the language about the Affordable Care Act, and passing a "clean" bill. [13]
House Republicans reported that their next attempt would be to delay the individual mandate and end the employer healthcare contribution for members of Congress and their staff. [14] The amended bill was sent to the Senate where it was tabled. [15]
No compromise occurred before the end of the day. After the failure of Congress to pass H.J.Res. 59 (or any other continuing resolution), the United States federal government shut down on October 1, 2013. The House and the Senate both continued to work on legislation that would restore funding to the government. House Republicans chose to begin writing "mini-appropriation" bills - continuing resolutions that would fund smaller pieces of the government. [16] Finally, on October 16, 2013, Congress passed the similarly-named Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which ended both the government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis. [17]
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013
Two months later, the bill became the vehicle for the compromise budget proposal of Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray, known as the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. On December 10, 2013, pursuant to the provisions of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 calling for a joint budget conference to work on possible compromises, Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray announced a compromise spending/budget proposal that they had agreed to. They chose to introduce the text as an amendment to H.J.Res. 59. The amendment was to completely replace the existing text of H.J.Res. 59 with the text of the "Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013."
Debate
There were two main, interconnected debates over the original continuing resolution. The first debate was whether to defund the Affordable Care Act, with most Republicans in favor of doing so, and most Democrats opposed to it. The second debate was whether it was worth shutting down the government, or risking a shutdown, in order to accomplish this goal. A few other provisions were debated, but most attention was directed at defunding the Affordable Care Act and the eventual government shutdown.
The primary provision under debate was the provision that would defund the Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as Obamacare). The House passed a measure that included this provision. The Senate removed it and sent back what it called a "clean" bill. In the second version of the H.J.Res 59 that the House passed, the House added an amendment that would delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act for one year. [12] House Republicans argued that this delay was "necessary to prepare a wary public for sweeping changes that lack the underlying infrastructure to make them work" and considered it a compromise position in comparison to their earlier efforts to defund the bill entirely. [12]
Although most Republicans wanted to defund the Affordable Care Act, Republicans in each chamber were split on how far to push the situation, since a failure to pass a continuing resolution would result in a government shutdown on October 1, 2013. Steve King of Iowa spoke out in favor of a shutdown, believing that it would help Republicans achieve their goal of defunding the Affordable Care Act. King argued that there were examples of government shutdowns in the past that did not do devastating damage and were successfully used by one party to achieve their desired goals. [18]
Other aspects
The National Education Association (NEA) wrote an open letter to the House opposing H.J.Res 59. The NEA urged representatives to vote no because the bill "continues the devastating cuts to education set in motion by the sequester and permanently defunds the Affordable Care Act." The organization states that they may decide to use the vote on this bill in their NEA Legislative Report Card for the 113th Congress. [19]
One controversial provision of the bill was section 134, which stated that "notwithstanding any other provision of this joint resolution, there is appropriated for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, late a Senator from New Jersey, $174,000." The non-profit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington protested the inclusion of this in the bill, since the senator's assets in 2011 were over $57 million. The group questioned why this "death gratuity" was considered a "top funding priority." [20]
The Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 refers to appropriations bills introduced during the 113th United States Congress. There are two different versions: H.R. 2609 in the House of Representatives and S. 1245 in the Senate. The bill was later incorporated as Division D of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which was enacted in January 2014.
From October 1 to October 17, 2013, the United States federal government entered a shutdown and curtailed most routine operations because neither legislation appropriating funds for fiscal year 2014 nor a continuing resolution for the interim authorization of appropriations for fiscal year 2014 was enacted in time. Regular government operations resumed October 17 after an interim appropriations bill was signed into law.
The 2013 United States debt-ceiling crisis centered on the raising of the federal government debt ceiling, and is part of an ongoing political debate in the United States Congress about federal government spending and the national debt. The crisis began in January 2013, when the United States reached the debt ceiling of $16.394 trillion that had been enacted following the debt ceiling crisis of 2011.
The October 2013 mini-continuing resolutions were a set of continuing resolutions that would have provided funding for a limited set of federal agencies during the United States federal government shutdown of 2013. The bills were part of a Republican strategy to fund portions of the government which have bipartisan support, in order to spare those agencies and programs from the effects of the shutdown. The bills all passed the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress, but were ignored by the United States Senate. These selective continuing resolutions became moot upon the passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 which funded the entire government, ending the shutdown.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 is an omnibus spending bill that packages several appropriation bills together in one larger bill. The 113th United States Congress failed to pass any of the twelve regular appropriations bills before the beginning of Fiscal Year 2014. The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 temporarily funded the government from October 1, 2013 to January 15, 2014. A second continuing resolution extended funding until January 18, 2014, giving both the House and the Senate enough time to vote on this bill.
The bill H.J.Res. 106 is a continuing resolution that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress and was signed into law on January 15, 2014 by President Barack Obama. The bill amends the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 to extend the time-period of funding provided by that continuing resolution from January 15, 2014 to January 18, 2014. The extension is in intended to give Congress the extra time it needs to pass the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which would provide the rest of the appropriations for fiscal year 2014. The fiscal year in the United States is the 12-month period beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next calendar year.
In the United States Congress, an appropriations bill is legislation to appropriate federal funds to specific federal government departments, agencies and programs. The money provides funding for operations, personnel, equipment and activities. Regular appropriations bills are passed annually, with the funding they provide covering one fiscal year. The fiscal year is the accounting period of the federal government, which runs from October 1 to September 30 of the following year. Appropriations bills are under the jurisdiction of the United States House Committee on Appropriations and the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. Both Committees have twelve matching subcommittees, each tasked with working on one of the twelve annual regular appropriations bills.
The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 is a bill that would make appropriations for fiscal year 2015 for military construction and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill is considered one of the two easiest appropriations bills to pass each year. The total amount appropriated by the introduced version of the bill is $71.5 billion, approximately $1.8 billion less than fiscal year 2014 due to a decrease in the need for military construction.
Every year, the United States Congress is responsible for writing, passing, reconciling, and submitting to the President of the United States a series of appropriations bills that appropriate money to specific federal government departments, agencies, and programs for their use to operate in the subsequent fiscal year. The money provides funding for operations, personnel, equipment, and activities. In 2014, Congress was responsible for passing the appropriations bills that would fund the federal government in fiscal year 2015, which runs from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015.
The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015 is an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2015 that would provide funding for the United States Department of the Treasury, as we all as the United States federal courts, the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and Washington, D.C..
The Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015 is a continuing resolution and United States public law that funded the federal government of the United States through December 11, 2014 by appropriating $1 trillion.
The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 began as a budget proposed by President Barack Obama to fund government operations for October 1, 2015 – September 30, 2016.
The requested budget was submitted to the 114th Congress on February 2, 2015.
The 2017 United States federal budget is the United States federal budget for fiscal year 2017, which lasted from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017. President Barack Obama submitted a budget proposal to the 114th Congress on February 9, 2016. The 2017 fiscal year overlaps the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration.
The following is a list of efforts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which had been enacted by the 111th United States Congress on March 23, 2010.
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The United States federal budget for fiscal year 2019 runs from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019. Five appropriations bills were passed in September 2018, the first time five bills had been enacted on time in 22 years, with the rest of the government being funded through a series of three continuing resolutions. A gap between the second and third of these led to the 2018–19 federal government shutdown. The remainder of government funding was enacted as an omnibus spending bill in February 2019.
