[author: Lai Lam]

Welcome to fiscal year 2019! Congress averted a government shutdown last week when the president signed a minibus spending package (H.R. 6157) that includes a full-year funding for Defense and Labor-HHS-Education as well as a continuing resolution (CR) through Dec. 7.

The House is now in recess until after the November midterm elections. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the chamber would reconvene on Nov. 13. Meanwhile, the Senate is expected to stay put in October to work through a busy agenda: the Kavanaugh nomination, FAA reauthorization, opioids legislation, water infrastructure bill, and the remaining FY 2019 appropriations bills.

As a reminder, Congress has completed work on five out of the 12 annual appropriations bills:

• Energy-Water
• Milcon-VA
• Legislative Branch
• Defense
• Labor-HHS-Education

Nine are still pending:

• Financial Services, Interior-EPA, Transportation-HUD, and Agriculture (H.R. 6147) – this four-bill package is in conference.
• Homeland Security,
• State-Foreign Operations
• Commerce-Science-Justice