LegiStorm

Summary:

The legislative branch appropriations bill provides funding for the Senate; House of Representatives; Joint Items; Capitol Police; Office of Compliance; Congressional Budget Office (CBO); Architect of the Capitol (AOC); Library of Congress (LOC), including the Congressional Research Service (CRS); Government Publishing Office (GPO); Government Accountability Office (GAO); Open World Leadership Center; and the John C. Stennis Center. The FY2019 legislative branch budget request of $4.960 billion was submitted on February 12, 2018. The budget request levels were developed prior to the enactment of full-year appropriations for FY2018. Agency assessments for FY2019 may subsequently have been revised—for example, to account for items funded or not funded in the FY2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act. Subsequent discussions may vary from the levels or language included in the budget request due to this timing. For purposes of this report, however, FY2019 requested levels refer to the requested levels originally submitted unless otherwise noted. By law, the President includes the legislative branch request in the annual budget submission without change. The House Appropriations Committee’s Legislative Branch Subcommittee held hearings in April to consider the FY2019 legislative branch requests. On May 8, 2018, the House Appropriations Committee held a markup of the bill. Three amendments were considered: one, a manager’s amendment, was adopted, and the bill was ordered reported. On May 24, 2018, the text of H.R. 5894 was included in a print issued by the House Rules Committee entitled “Text of Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act 2019” (Committee Print 115-71, which also contained the text of H.R. 5895, H.R. 5894, and H.R. 5786). On June 5 and 6, the House Rules Committee met to consider rules for the consideration of H.R. 5895, which included legislative branch funding as Division B; the bill has sometimes been referred to as a “minibus” appropriations package. The rule for consideration (H.Res. 918, H.Rept. 115-711) was agreed to in the House on June 6, 2018. Of the seven amendments to Division B made in order by H.Res. 918, six were offered and four were agreed to (three by voice vote and one by roll call vote). H.R. 5895 passed in the House on June 8, 2018, by a vote of 212-179 (Roll no. 257). The House-passed total for legislative branch activities, excluding Senate items, was $3.811 billion (H.R. 5894, H.Rept. 115-696). The Senate Appropriations Committee’s Legislative Branch Subcommittee held hearings in April and May of 2018 to consider FY2019 legislative branch requests. On June 14, the Senate Appropriations Committee held a markup of its version of the FY2019 bill and reported S. 3071 (S.Rept. 115-274), which proposed $3.367 billion for legislative branch activities, excluding House items. The Senate began consideration of FY2019 legislative branch appropriations on June 18, 2018, agreeing to an amendment in the nature of a substitute (S.Amdt. 2910) that was made to H.R. 5895. Four amendments were agreed to for the legislative branch section of the bill, which is in Division B. H.R. 5895, as amended, was passed in the Senate on June 25, 2018, by a vote of 86-5 (Rollcall Vote No. 139 Leg.). The Senate-passed bill would provide $4.796 million for the legislative branch, including House items. The FY2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 115-141) provided $4.700 billion, an increase of $260.0 million (+5.9%) from FY2017. The FY2017 level of $4.440 billion was an increase of $77.0 million (+1.7%) from FY2016. The FY2016 level of $4.363 billion represented an increase of $63 million (+1.5%) from the FY2015 level of $4.300 billion, and the FY2015 level represented an increase of $41.7 million (+1.0%) from the FY2014 funding level of $4.259 billion. The FY2013 act funded legislative branch accounts at the FY2012 enacted level, with some exceptions (also known as “anomalies”), less across-the-board rescissions that applied to all appropriations in the act, and not including sequestration reductions implemented on March 1. The FY2012 level of $4.307 billion represented a decrease of $236.9 million (-5.2%) from the FY2011 level, which itself represented a decrease of $125.1 million (-2.7%) from FY2010. The smallest of the appropriations bills, the legislative branch comprises approximately 0.4% of total discretionary budget authority.