Congress on Thursday passed a stopgap funding measure to keep the government open into early March, allowing lawmakers additional time to complete work on final fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills.
The Senate first voted 77-18 to pass the continuing resolution and then the House approved the measure with a 314-109 vote later on Thursday, sending the bill to the president’s desk for final signature.
“I have been working nonstop with my colleagues in both chambers to keep this process moving as quickly as we possibly can so that we can write and pass the strongest possible funding bills,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, said during floor remarks ahead of Thursday’s vote. “Passing this measure will allow us the time we need to hammer out those funding bills for Fiscal Year ‘24—after many months of needless delays.”
Congressional leaders unveiled the CR proposal on Sunday, just days before the partial government shutdown deadline at midnight on Friday, which also supports $2.2 billion to continue avoiding delays on the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program (Defense Daily, Jan. 16).
The new CR keeps the two-step, or “laddered,” approach of the current stopgap funding measure, extending temporary funding for agencies and programs covered by the Military Construction-VA, Agriculture, Energy-Water and Transportation-HUD spending bills until March 1 and all remaining agencies and programs, to include defense, until March 8.
Congress’ move to prevent a government shutdown follows a bipartisan spending agreement rolled out earlier this month to finalize full-year FY ‘24 spending toplines, to include $886 billion for defense (Defense Daily, Jan. 8)
In the Senate, all 18 votes against were cast by Republicans, while more Democrats than GOP members voted for the CR in the House.
The House in late September passed its defense spending legislation, which received strong opposition from Democrats over its nearly $2 billion cut to multi-year procurement for select munitions and the inclusion of a slew of GOP-led proposals they’ve criticized as “poison pills” and “needlessly divisive” (Defense Daily, Sept. 29 2023).
The Senate has yet to pass FY ‘24 defense funding, while the Appropriations Committee advanced a version of the legislation this past July (Defense Daily, July 27 2023).