Friday, January 19, 2024: President Biden Signed Another Two-Tiered Continuing Resolution Appropriations Bill to Fund Federal Government on an Interim Basis
US DOL Budget Will Remain at its Present Level Through March 8, 2024
President Biden signed into law H.R. 2872, another “two-tiered” budget bill that provides fiscal year (“FY”) 2024 appropriations to federal agencies at current levels through either March 1, 2024 or March 8, 2024, depending on the federal agency in question.
The measure, entitled the “Further Additional Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024,” is a Continuing Resolution (“CR”). This CR is intended to allow both chambers more time to resolve contentious details to arrive at a broader FY 2024 budget deal in lieu of the Congress declaring to the American people that is has reached impasse over how much federal money to spend, and where. The effect of a CR is that it authorizes budget to the federal agencies to continue operating but only at the same level of budget that Congress gave each agency for the just concluded FY (in this case FY 2023) and not at the usually higher level of the proposed budget for the new FY now in progress (FY 2024).
Holding The Line: Those Republican and Democrat Members of the House and Senate who favor fiscal restraint are pleased that they have been effective to keep spending thus far at last year’s levels and not allow the federal budget to continue to grow.
Third Continuing Resolution for FY 2024
President Biden signed a previous CR – H.R. 5860 – into law on September 30, 2023 (the last day of FY 2023), funding the federal government through November 17, 2023. Then on November 16, 2023, the President signed into law H.R. 6363, a two-tiered CR bill.
Like the November CR, the latest CR law signed on Friday puts the federal agency funding into two batches. The first batch funds the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture at current levels through March 1, 2024. The previous CR had funded those agencies at current levels through January 19, 2024. The second batch funds the rest of the government – including the Department of Labor/OFCCP, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board – at current levels through March 8, 2024. The previous CR funded those agencies at current levels through February 2, 2024. See our story on the November CR for an explanation of what this means for OFCCP.