Funding lapses January 19 for numerous agencies, and February 2 for many others. Image: Erik Cox Photography/Shutterstock.com
Congress returns to session next week to face the same issues it could not resolve before its holiday recess of funding federal agencies for the fiscal year now one-quarter over.
Funding lapses January 19 for agencies covered by the Agriculture, Energy, HUD-Transportation and VA-military construction appropriations bills—which in addition to those departments cover FDA, CFTC, Farm Credit Administration, Army Corps of Engineers and numerous related small agencies and commissions.
Other departments and agencies are funded only until February 2. That is the result of the second temporary funding extension for fiscal year 2024, which like the prior one generally continued funding at fiscal 2023 levels even as agency needs have changed.
As with the two prior deadlines to prevent a funding lapse and a partial government shutdown, the path toward a resolution is unclear, as the House Republican leadership is insisting on enacting regular spending bills rather than more temporary measures even amid deep differences with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House.
Only three of the 12 regular spending bills have passed the Senate and while the House has passed seven, those votes were almost completely along party lines, as they contained social policy provisions and lower spending levels that are favored by the farthest-right House Republicans.
That group since has signaled willingness to ease their demands regarding spending levels but they continue to press for the policy provisions, using the threat of a shutdown as leverage. That same strategy had failed repeatedly in 2023 on major bills on the federal debt ceiling, the funding extensions and the DoD authorization bill.
For the meantime, OMB has told agencies that they do not need to make the kind of across-the-board cuts that the debt ceiling law if only stopgap funding was in effect as of the end of 2023—a provision that was designed to encourage enactment of regular appropriations bills. However, it added that such cuts would be ordered if regular bills aren’t in place by April 30. The last time the government went through a “sequestration,” in 2013, the result was several unpaid employee furlough days in many agencies.
Also to get early priority are aid bills for Israel and Ukraine that were left by the wayside when Congress recessed, unable to reach agreement on them. During the recess, talks continued on border control policy, an issue that has held up action as largely those same House Republicans have insisted on tying in to any aid bill.
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