The Department of Energy will remain frozen at fiscal 2017 spending levels through at least late March, under the stopgap spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday morning after an overnight government shutdown — the second of fiscal 2018.
The bill is the fifth continuing resolution of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. While it includes important financial aid for the Defense Department and many other government programs, nuclear weapons programs managed by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) got no special treatment.
Under the bill, NNSA is funded at the annualized equivalent of its 2017 budgets through March 23 — about halfway through fiscal 2018. That is roughly $13 billion instead of $14 billion as requested in May 2017. Again under the latest continuing resolution, several important programs across the complex would be prohibited from starting up as planned.
But importantly, Friday’s budget act eliminated pending budget cuts that would have hurt DOE in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, taking some of the pressure off Congress as it attempts to pass a permanent 2018 budget for the department. However, the ongoing debate over illegal immigration that last month precipitated the first government shutdown of fiscal 2018 and prompted many Democrats to oppose Friday’s continuing resolution still hangs over Capitol Hill.
On top of that, the White House is expected to release its 2019 budget request Monday, piling still more work on Congress’ plate at a time when federal agencies outside the Pentagon still do not have a permanent budget. Among other things, federal agencies may not begin new work under continuing resolutions.
The compromise budget, unveiled Wednesday to bipartisan applause, provided a permanent 2018 budget only for the Defense Department. By Thursday, the bill had drawn the ire of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who filibustered the measure long enough to close the government for a few hours Friday morning after the previous continuing resolution expired.
House Democrats and Republican fiscal hawks in the chamber also groused about the bill. Many House Democrats still oppose any government budget bill that does not include legal protections for young people called Dreamers who were brought into the country illegally. Some members of the House GOP caucus continue to object to increased government spending.
Increased government spending, in the end, attracted enough bipartisan support to pass the bill.
With the new budget deal, Congress eliminated the dreaded “sequestration” cuts passed into law as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act. That allows lawmakers to increase spending on military and domestic programs, including DOE. As a condition of supporting the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Senate Democrats a chance to legislate protections for Dreamers outside the confines of an appropriations bill.
The federal government shut down for a weekend and a day in mid-January after Senate Democrats refused to vote for a stopgap spending bill that did not include protections for the Dreamers.
