Congress Continues to Negotiate Federal Funding

By Laura Walling, Senior Director of Government Relations, Goodwill Industries International

After recently returning from summer recess, lawmakers are already anxious to get back home for the final weeks of election season. But first they must avoid a government shutdown by passing a temporary funding bill which must be approved by September 30 when the fiscal year ends.

The Senate is set to hold a procedural vote on Tuesday on a House-passed bill which would serve as the legislative vehicle for a continuing resolution.  However, details on funding amounts and how long the funding will last are still being negotiated.  While some Congressional Republicans are pushing for the stopgap to go into 2023 for a new Congress to take up, it is more likely that it will go until mid-December.  The House doesn’t return until Wednesday evening due to Rosh Hashanah, bringing the votes close to the deadline – a scenario which we have seen several times before.  If the Senate cannot garner 60 votes for passage on Tuesday, the House will take the lead on the bill.

While the continuing resolution is likely to be “clean” containing spending revisions, some extensions of expiring programs and tweaks to expiring authorizations may be included.  For example, the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to collect user fees charged to pharmaceutical companies to pay for the administration’s review of prescription drugs and other medical products expires on October 1.

The authorization for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program expires on September 30, along with the National Flood Insurance Program’s ability to renew policies and write new ones.

Assuming the continuing resolution passes, the House will adjourn to hit the campaign trail while the Senate is expected to remain in session the first two weeks of October.  The Senate is slated to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass bill which was voted out of committee back in June.