POLSC232: American Government

There are generally three types of appropriations measures: regular appropriations bills, continuing resolutions, and supplemental appropriations measures. In general, during a calendar year, Congress may consider:

• 12 regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year that begins on October 1 (often referred to as the budget year) to provide the annual funding for the agencies, projects, and activities funded therein;
  
• one or more continuing resolutions for that same fiscal year; and one or more supplemental appropriations measures for the current fiscal year.
  

Regular Appropriations Bills

The appropriations process assumes the consideration of 12 regular appropriations measures annually. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are both organized into 12 subcommittees, with each subcommittee having responsibility for developing one regular annual appropriations bill.

Regular appropriations bills contain a series of unnumbered paragraphs with headings, generally reflecting a unique budget account. The basic unit of regular and supplemental appropriations bills is the account. Under these measures, funding for each department and large independent agency is organized into one or several accounts. Each account generally includes similar programs, projects, or items, such as a research and development account or a salaries and expenses account, although a few accounts include only a single program, project, or item. For small agencies, a single account may fund all of the agency's activities. These acts typically provide a lump-sum amount for each account as well as any conditions, provisos, or specific requirements that apply to that account.

In report language, the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations may provide more detailed expectations or directions to the departments and agencies on the distribution of funding among various activities funded within an account.

Appropriations measures may also provide transfer authority. Transfers shift budget authority from one account or fund to another or allow agencies to make such shifts. For example, an agency moving new budget authority from a salaries and expenses account to a research and development account would be a transfer. Agencies are prohibited from making such transfers without statutory authority.

Agencies may, however, generally shift budget authority from one activity to another within an account without additional statutory authority. This is referred to as reprogramming. The appropriations subcommittees have established notification and other oversight procedures for various agencies to follow regarding reprogramming actions. Generally, these procedures differ with each subcommittee.

Omnibus Appropriations

Congress has traditionally considered and approved each regular appropriations bill separately, but Congress has also combined several bills together into a single legislative vehicle prior to enactment. These packages are referred to as omnibus appropriation measures.

In these cases, Congress typically begins consideration of each regular bill separately but has generally combined some of the bills together at a later stage in the legislative process, particularly while one or more is in conference. During conference on one of the regular appropriations bills, the conferees have typically added to the conference report the final agreements on other outstanding regular appropriations bills, thereby creating an omnibus appropriations measure.

Omnibus acts may provide the full text of each regular appropriations bill included in the act or may incorporate the full text by reference. Omnibus acts may also be in the form of full-year continuing resolutions. Those that provide funding either by including the text of the regular bills or by incorporating them by reference may be considered omnibus bills, but those resolutions providing spending rates – such as is typically included in continuing resolutions – would not.

Packaging regular appropriations bills can be an efficient means for resolving outstanding differences within Congress or between Congress and the President. The negotiators may be able to make more convenient trade-offs between issues among several bills and complete consideration of appropriations using fewer measures. Omnibus measures may also be used to achieve a timely end to the annual appropriations process.

Continuing Resolutions

In general, budget authority provided in regular appropriations expires at the end of the fiscal year – September 30 – unless otherwise specified. If action on one or more regular appropriations measures has not been completed by the start of the fiscal year, on October 1, the agencies funded by these bills must cease non-excepted activities due to lack of budget authority.

Traditionally, temporary funding has been provided in the form of a joint resolution to allow agencies or programs to continue to obligate funds at a particular rate (such as the rate of operations for the previous fiscal year) for a specific period of time, which may range from a single day to an entire fiscal year. These measures are known as continuing resolutions (or CRs).

In only four instances since FY1977 (FY1977, FY1989, FY1995, and FY1997) were all regular appropriations enacted by the start of the fiscal year. In all other instances, at least one CR was necessary to fund governmental activities until action on the remaining regular appropriations bills was completed.

On or before the start of the fiscal year, Congress and the President generally complete action on an initial CR that temporarily funds the outstanding regular appropriations bills. In contrast to funding practices in regular bills (i.e., providing separate appropriations levels for each account), temporary CRs generally provide funding at a rate or formula, with certain exceptions. Recently, the CRs have generally provided a rate at the levels provided in the previous fiscal year for all accounts in each regular bill covered, with some account-specific adjustments, termed anomalies.

The initial CR typically provides temporary funding until a specific date or until the enactment of the applicable regular appropriations acts, if earlier. Once the initial CR becomes law, additional interim CRs may be used to sequentially extend the expiration date. These subsequent CRs sometimes change the funding methods.

Less frequently, a full-year CR may be enacted that continues funding – at a specific rate or formula for accounts in outstanding regular bills, typically with numerous account-specific exceptions – through the end of the fiscal year. For example, the FY2007 full-year CR (P.L. 110-5) covered nine regular bills, the FY2011 full-year CR (P.L. 112-10) covered 11 regular bills, and the FY2013 full-year CR (P.L. 113-6) covered seven regular bills.

Supplemental Appropriations Measures

In addition to the amounts provided in a regular appropriations measure, the President may request, and Congress may enact, additional funding for selected activities in the form of one or more supplemental appropriations measures (or supplementals). In general, supplemental funding may be enacted to address cases where resources provided through the annual appropriations process are determined to be inadequate or not timely. Supplementals have been used to provide funding for unforeseen needs, such as response and recovery costs due to a disaster. One recent example is the supplemental appropriations bill that was enacted in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2013. These measures, like regular appropriations bills, provide specific amounts of funding for individual accounts rather than funding based on a rate for operations (like a CR). Sometimes Congress includes supplemental appropriations in regular bills and CRs rather than in a separate supplemental bill.