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2006 Budget CR Puts Hold on Most Federal Grant Opportunities
Keeping with most years in recent memory, the new federal fiscal year began Oct. 1 without Congress approving a budget for nearly all of the national government. With Hurricane Katrina relief and aftermath putting unprecedented demands on the Treasury and Congress, legislators quickly passed a Continuing Resolution last Thursday and Friday to keep the government open through Nov. 18.
Only the legislative and Interior-Environment budgets have been enacted and the Homeland Security appropriations bill has moved out of conference. The Continuing Resolution, H.J. Res. 68, will fund programs covered by the bill at the lowest of three levels: fiscal year 2005 funding, the fiscal year 2006 level approved by the House, or the FY 2006 level approved by the Senate. Media reports state exceptions will be granted for certain agencies and programs, including NASA, the State Department, Medicare, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Budgets for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy Office of Science would be frozen at FY05 levels, since the House and Senate versions of the bills appropriates more funds for the three agencies in FY06. An exception for NSF is made in Sec. 126 of the resolution, which authorizes NSF to fund Arctic and Antarctic icebreaking activities, reflecting the transfer of this activity from the Coast Guard to NSF.
The resolution also includes language prohibiting affected agencies from initiating or resuming programs or procurements not funded in FY 2005 or from awarding new grants and certain other forms of assistance during the period.
The Association of American Universities states House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has said that funding programs at the lowest level was intended to keep pressure on the Senate to approve its regular FY06 appropriations bills and to encourage both chambers to reach conference agreements on the funding bills.
Continuing Resolutions, however, have been extended repeatedly in some years, dragging the appropriations process well into winter. More information is available at: http://appropriations.house.gov/