House Appropriators Begin Work on FY2021 Spending Bills

The House Appropriations Committee began work on their FY2021 spending bills last week. The committee will complete action on all 12 spending bills this week. Next week, they will package four of these bills – Agriculture, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and State-Foreign Operations – and consider them on the House floor. The week of July 27, they will take up another package of FY21 spending bills, but didn’t announce which bills would be included in that package. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) wrote in a Dear Colleague, “the House will have passed legislation to fund 96% of the government before the end of July for the second time in two years.” Most think that this means they will hold back the FY21 Homeland Security Appropriations bill from House floor consideration as it is 3.9% of the total FY21 discretionary budget.

 

Senate Appropriators have not released nor marked up any of their FY21 bills. Senate Republicans are concerned that Democrats will offer amendments on coronavirus aid (they think that should be considered separately) or on reforming police (they think that should be a separate policy bill, not a spending bill).

 

Appropriations Subcommittee

House Action

Senate Action

Agriculture

Subcommittee: July 6

Full Committee: July 9

Floor: Week of July 20

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Commerce-Justice-Science

Subcommittee: July 8

Full Committee: July 14

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Defense

Subcommittee: July 8

Full Committee: July 14

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Energy & Water

Subcommittee: July 7

Full Committee: July 13

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Financial Services

Subcommittee: July 8

Full Committee: July 15

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Homeland Security

Subcommittee: July 7

Full Committee: July 15

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Interior-Environment

Subcommittee: July 7

Full Committee: July 10

Floor: Week of July 20

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Labor-HHS-Education

Subcommittee: July 7

Full Committee: July 13

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Legislative Branch

Subcommittee: July 7

Full Committee: July 10

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Military Construction-Veterans Affairs

Subcommittee: July 6

Full Committee: July 9

Floor: Week of July 20

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

State-Foreign Operations

Subcommittee: July 6

Full Committee: July 9

Floor: Week of July 20

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

Transportation-HUD

Subcommittee: July 8

Full Committee: July 14

Subcommittee:

Full Committee:

 

As they were marking up their FY21 bills, House Appropriators set the overall funding levels – called 302(b)s – for each subcommittee. Here’s how the House funding levels compare with the enacted levels for FY20.

 

Appropriations Subcommittee

FY20 Enacted

FY21 House

FY21 Senate

FY21 Conference

Agriculture

$23.6B

$23.980B

 

 

Commerce-Justice-Science

$78.9B

$71.473B

 

 

Defense

$695.1B

$626.190B

 

 

Energy & Water

$48.3B

$49.607B

 

 

Financial Services

$24.0B

$24.636B

 

 

Homeland Security

$67.9B

$50.718B

 

 

Interior-Environment

$38.2B

$36.760B

 

 

Labor-HHS-Education

$194.6B

$182.914B

 

 

Legislative Branch

$5.0B

$5.300B

 

 

Military Construction-Veterans Affairs

$110.4B

$102.648B

 

 

State-Foreign Operations

$54.7B

$47.850B

 

 

Transportation-HUD

$74.3B

$75.924B

 

 

 

The end of the fiscal year is September 30. Congress likely will have to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government past September 30. A CR basically funds the government at the prior year’s funding levels and doesn’t allow for any new starts.

 

I went through some of the House FY21 spending bills and pulled funding levels and language for programs I thought would be of interest to FOSA members.