After last week’s recess, the House is expected to continue work this week on the Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bills. The first of the bills, Commerce-Justice-Science, is scheduled to be considered on the House floor this week, and House subcommittees are scheduled to consider the Defense, Military Construction-VA, Homeland Security, and State-Foreign Operations bills.
Prior to the recent congressional recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Agriculture and Energy/ Water bills.
Complicating this year’s appropriations process is the fact that the House and Senate are working from different allocations. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad filed allocations that comply with the $1.047 trillion discretionary spending cap in last year’s Budget Control Act (BCA), though the House Budget Resolution included an allocation that is $19 billion below the BCA agreement.
Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said that President Obama will not sign any appropriations bills until the House indicates it will “abide by last summer’s agreement,” and yesterday the administration specifically threatened to veto the House Commerce-Justice-Science bill.
External links:
Library of Congress: Status of FY 2013 Appropriations
House Appropriations Committee
House Appropriations Committee (Democrats)
Office of Management and Budget: Statement of Administration Policy
