The bipartisan deal that reopened the federal government on October 17 established a new set of deadlines lawmakers will have to meet to avoid another crisis tied to expiring appropriations and the debt ceiling early next year.
The bill that ended the shutdown (H.R. 2775) provides funding to EPA and other federal departments and agencies at post-sequester FY13 levels through January 15 – by which time either another temporary funding extension or a full-year FY14 spending bill will be due. The bill suspends the debt ceiling, but only through February 7. Finally, lawmakers agreed to set a December 13 deadline for the House and Senate to negotiate a long-term budget that could bring about tax and spending reforms while setting the stage for action on a suite of final FY14 appropriations bills.
The deal came after weeks of partisan bickering that took the nation to the brink of an unprecedented debt limit breach. Conservative Republicans had originally hoped to use the shutdown and the debt limit as leverage to secure a delay or repeal of President Obama’s healthcare reform law, but they never attracted nearly enough Senate votes to succeed in this effort. In the end, H.R. 2775 included a few modest provisions requiring the government to verify individual eligibility for health insurance subsidies, but nothing close to the major reforms or repeal the conservatives sought.
For their part, congressional Democrats succeeded in protecting the healthcare law and fighting back other Republican efforts to condition the debt ceiling increase on passage of controversial measures to approve the Keystone XL pipeline or restrict EPA regulatory authority. But Democrats fell short of their desire to lift the debt limit through the 2014 elections, thus setting up the possibility of another debt fight early next year.
While H.R. 2775 funds the government for the next three months, it leaves in place the across-the-board sequestration cuts that are currently scheduled to reduce domestic discretionary spending accounts – including EPA – by approximately 7 percent in January. Other parts of the bill extend the Department of Homeland Security’s CFATS chemical facility security program into mid-January as well, but these provisions do not alter the exemption of drinking water and wastewater facilities from CFATS regulations.
House and Senate Budget Committee leaders have already begun initial negotiations toward a bicameral budget agreement they hope will outline long-term tax and spending reform goals, soften the impact of sequestration, and lay the groundwork for approval of FY14 appropriations bills by mid-January. It will be a challenge for lawmakers to agree on such a budget framework by December 13, however, in part because they will start with House- and Senate-approved budgets that are roughly $93 billion apart in proposed FY14 discretionary spending limits. The House and Senate last agreed on a bicameral budget resolution before the 2010 fiscal year.