Congress Begins Work on Third Continuing Resolution for FY2018 that would Fully Fund the Department of Defense

Legislative Update
December 14, 2017

With the current Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Continuing Resolution (CR) set to expire on December 22, the House Appropriations Committee has released the text of a third CR that would keep the government funded at current levels through January 19.

The bill also includes full FY2018 funding for the Department of Defense, as well as a fix for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), community health center funding (two year extension), National Health Service Corp (two year extension), and other health programs.

The bill would effectively suspend the sequestration order for ‘security spending’ while delaying sequestration for non-security spending, thereby rendering the defense discretionary cap irrelevant while keeping the nondefense discretionary cap.

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. Republicans in both chambers have said the Senate is unlikely to approve the hybrid measure and is more likely to strip out the DOD portion of the bill and send back a CR for all 12 regular spending measures.