Division A — CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024

Overview

Division A is not a normal spending bill for one department. It is a short-term continuing resolution (often called a “CR”) that keeps almost the entire federal government running into fiscal year 2024 by extending fiscal year 2023 funding laws. It covers all 12 regular appropriations areas—from Defense and Homeland Security to health, education, agriculture, and foreign aid—so agencies can keep operating until Congress passes full-year bills or the deadline hits.

The funding generally continues at the same rate as fiscal year 2023, with limits on starting new projects, plus a short list of exceptions and one large new disaster appropriation.

Total Spending

No single total is stated in this division. Most money is provided as “such amounts as may be necessary, at a rate for operations” equal to the fiscal year 2023 appropriations acts, not as a new grand total.

The clearest new dollar figure in the text is an extra $16 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund. Several other amounts are adjusted upward or downward from last year’s laws; those are listed below. A full-government dollar total cannot be calculated from this text alone.

This authority lasts until the earliest of: a full-year appropriation for that program, a fiscal year 2024 bill that drops the program, or November 17, 2023 (Section 106).

Key Funding Areas

Because this is a rate-based extension, the items below are the dollar amounts actually written into this division, not the full budgets of these agencies.

• FEMA Disaster Relief Fund: $16 billion extra for fiscal year 2024, available until spent — disaster response and recovery. Of that, $15.5 billion is for major disasters declared under the Stafford Act, and $2 million goes to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General for audits and investigations of that fund. The text does not further split the remaining amount.
• Columbia-class submarine (Navy shipbuilding): up to $621.27 million may be used during this period for procurement of one Columbia-class submarine (the Ohio-replacement ballistic-missile submarine), even though normal CR rules block new or increased production.
• Office of Personnel Management, salaries and expenses: annual rate raised from $190.78 million to $219.08 million.
• FAA Facilities and Equipment: two figures in last year’s law are reset to $617 million (from $570 million) and $2.17 billion (from $2.22 billion). The shifts offset each other by $47 million; this text does not explain what each figure covers.
• Migration and Refugee Assistance (carried forward from a fiscal year 2023 supplemental heading): $915.05 million, down from $1.54 billion in the referenced text.
• International Disaster Assistance: $637.90 million, down from $937.90 million in the referenced text.
• National Science Foundation, Research and Related Activities (supplemental-style amount): $608.16 million, down from $818.16 million.
• A Commerce-Justice-Science provision (section 521(d)(1) of the fiscal year 2023 law): $122.57 million, down from $705.77 million. This division does not describe what that subsection funds.
• International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement: $74.996 million, down from $375.00 million.
• Rural water and waste disposal (supplemental-style amount): $60 million, down from $325 million. Rural community facilities: $25.3 million, down from $75.3 million.

Base agency budgets—Defense, Veterans Affairs, HHS, Education, and the rest—continue at fiscal year 2023 rates. Those full-year dollar totals are not restated in this division.

Notable Provisions

• No new starts, generally. Agencies may not start or restart projects that were not funded in fiscal year 2023. For Defense, the CR also blocks new production, higher production rates, and new multi-year buys that use advance procurement, unless a later law specifically allows them.
• “Most limited funding” rule. Agencies are told to take only the smallest funding step needed to keep existing work going, and not to rush out grants in a way that locks in full-year decisions before Congress finishes the regular bills.
• Furlough flexibility. Departments may shift civilian pay funding up to the level needed to avoid furloughs, but only after they have cut or delayed non-personnel administrative costs.
• Nutrition and farm programs protected at operating levels. WIC may be funded at the rate needed to keep people enrolled. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program may be funded to hold its current caseload. USDA farm ownership loans and rural rental assistance may be funded as needed to keep those programs working. Broader food-assistance activities under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 continue at the rate needed to maintain current-law levels.
• Mandatory payments mostly continue, including benefits whose funding was provided in the fiscal year 2023 appropriations acts. Payments due around the first of a month can still be made for up to 30 days after November 17, 2023. Exception: the “Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund” is carved out of that special continuation rule. The text does not say what that means in practice for veterans’ benefits.
• Disaster and insurance extensions. Besides the $16 billion, FEMA’s existing Disaster Relief Fund may be spent at the rate needed for response and recovery. The National Flood Insurance Program is extended through the November 17, 2023 date (and treated as if it never lapsed if this law is signed after September 30, 2023).
• Wildland firefighter pay. Interior and Forest Service wildfire funds may keep covering the federal wildland firefighter base-pay increase from the 2021 infrastructure law.
• Other short extensions. Livestock mandatory price reporting; a federal cybersecurity authority; certain Afghanistan-related authority from a 2022 supplemental; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families–related activities under part A of title IV of the Social Security Act (and a related child-welfare provision). TANF-type activities are funded with “such sums as may be necessary,” not a fixed dollar amount.
• Parole Commission. A long-running 36-year authority is extended by 17 days (“36 years and 17 days”). The calendar end date is not spelled out in this text.
• Defense personnel statute. During this CR only, a two-year limit in 10 U.S.C. § 714(b)(2)(B) is applied as four years. The text does not name the position.
• Local D.C. budget. The District of Columbia may spend its own local funds at the rate in its fiscal year 2024 local budget act, not only at the fiscal year 2023 federal rate.
• Millennium Challenge Corporation. A board member whose term began September 16, 2019, may keep serving until March 31, 2024, or until a successor is appointed, whichever comes first.
• NASA cleanup. Older NASA space-operations funds from 2017 and 2018 laws stay available through fiscal year 2024 only to pay valid bills already incurred in fiscal years 2017–2019.
• Some fiscal year 2023 provisions are dropped or trimmed, including specified sections in the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior, State, and Transportation-HUD laws, plus language on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve petroleum account and the Energy Department’s Title 17 loan-guarantee program. This division does not explain what those excluded sections did.
• Emergency budget labels. The $16 billion disaster amount, and certain amounts carried forward from last year’s supplementals, are tagged as emergency requirements for budget-law purposes. Emergency amounts are available only if the President also designates them and tells Congress.

Who Benefits

• Federal agencies and their workers, who can keep operating and, if necessary, be paid at a rate meant to avoid furloughs.
• People and communities hit by major disasters, through FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and the extra $16 billion.
• Flood-insurance policyholders and communities in the National Flood Insurance Program, which is kept alive through the CR date.
• Low-income families using WIC, people in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and others in domestic food programs continued at current-law rates.
• Farmers seeking approved direct or guaranteed farm-ownership loans, and rural renters assisted through USDA rental assistance.
• Wildland firefighters whose base-pay increase can keep being funded.
• Service members, defense programs already underway, and veterans’ programs funded in the fiscal year 2023 Military Construction–VA law, which continue at last year’s rate—with the Toxic Exposures Fund treated differently from other mandatory payments.
• States, grantees, and beneficiaries of ongoing Labor, HHS, and Education programs, including TANF-related activities, though agencies are barred from front-loading full-year grant awards.
• Refugees, disaster-affected people abroad, and narcotics-control programs, at the reduced carryover amounts listed above—not at the higher figures in last year’s supplemental text.
• D.C. local programs, which can follow the District’s own fiscal year 2024 local budget.

Plain English Summary

This is a stopgap, not a new budget. It tells federal agencies: keep doing what you were already doing, at about last year��s pace, but don’t start new projects, and don’t spend as if the whole year is settled. The clock runs out on November 17, 2023, unless Congress passes real funding bills sooner. The one big new check in this text is $16 billion for FEMA disaster relief. A few programs get special permission to keep serving people without interruption—WIC, farm loans, rural rental aid, flood insurance, wildland firefighter raises, and work on one new Columbia-class submarine—while some supplemental-style foreign aid, science, and rural-water amounts are carried forward at lower dollar figures than last year’s text. If you get a federal paycheck, a disaster-aid check, food assistance, or flood insurance, this is the law that was meant to keep those going for about six weeks while Congress kept arguing over the full-year bills.