Division A — CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2027

Overview

Division A is the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027. It is a short-term stopgap that keeps most of the federal government running at fiscal year 2026 funding rates and under fiscal year 2026 rules. It is not a full-year budget for one department. It covers the major appropriations bills—from Agriculture and Defense through Veterans Affairs, State Department programs, and Transportation and Housing—until regular 2027 spending bills become law or the stopgap expires.

Total Spending

No total dollar amount is stated in this division. Section 101 appropriates “such amounts as may be necessary” at the rate for operations in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations acts. Spending is available only until the earlier of a regular 2027 appropriation, a 2027 bill that drops the activity, or December 11, 2026. Because this is a rate, not a new full-year total, the text does not show how many dollars will actually be spent during that window.

Key Funding Areas

Most accounts simply continue at last year’s rate. The text does name a smaller set of dollar figures, mostly as caps or add-ons:

• Navy shipbuilding cost increases: up to $2.612 billion combined — authority to use continued Navy shipbuilding funds for prior-year cost growth on carriers, destroyers, submarines, amphibious ships, oilers, and related programs. Each line is a “not to exceed” cap (for example, up to $566.5 million for the 2021 Columbia-class program and up to $561.1 million for the 2019 Virginia-class program), not a guarantee that the full amount will be spent.
• Defense-wide National Security Systems: up to $2.853 billion — continued Defense-wide procurement funds may be used for these systems, again as a cap.
• Indian Health Service, services: $75.8 million rate for operations, in addition to the continued 2026 rate — staffing and operating facilities opened, renovated, or expanded in fiscal years 2022, 2026, and 2027.
• Indian Health Service, facilities: $8.3 million additional rate for operations — same purpose, for facility costs.
• HUD flexible-subsidy loan relief: $6,258,174.91, available through September 30, 2029 — paying off certain older HUD housing loans for qualifying nonprofit properties. A separate rescission of $4,258,174.91 from an older HUD account is also in the text.
• Congressional death payments: $174,000 to the widow of Representative David A. Scott of Georgia, and $174,000 to the heir of Senator Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina.
• CALFED Bay-Delta: the dollar figure in existing law is raised from $32.6 million to $40 million during this period.
• Programs continued at the 2026 rate, with extra flexibility but no new dollar total in the text: WIC; the Commodity Supplemental Food Program; farm ownership loans; Small Business Administration loan guarantees; FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund; wildfire suppression at Interior and the Forest Service; Essential Air Service; 2030 Census preparation; NOAA’s GeoXO weather-satellite schedule; FBI work tied to the 2028 Olympics; and U.S. Marshals judicial security.

Notable Provisions

• The stopgap ends on December 11, 2026, or sooner if regular appropriations are enacted.
• Agencies generally may not start new projects or, at the Defense Department, start new production or raise production rates above the 2026 level.
• Agencies must take the most limited funding action needed to keep existing work going, and they generally may not front-load grants to states, other countries, or grantees.
• Civilian pay may be funded at the rate needed to avoid furloughs, but only after non-personnel administrative costs are reduced or deferred.
• Entitlements and other mandatory payments, including food-assistance activities under the Food and Nutrition Act, continue at current-law levels. Payments due near the first of a month can continue for up to 30 days after the stopgap ends.
• No cost-of-living adjustment for Members of Congress during this period.
• Several authorities that would otherwise expire are extended through the stopgap date, including livestock mandatory reporting, the National Flood Insurance Program, and a TSA-related provision through fiscal year 2027.
• The District of Columbia may spend local funds at the rate in its own fiscal year 2027 local budget.
• Specified sections of the 2026 bills are not continued, including parts of the Commerce-Justice-Science, Homeland Security, Interior, and Labor-HHS-Education acts, and the last proviso on Election Assistance Commission election-security grants. This text does not say what those excluded sections did.
• Some old, unobligated balances are rescinded and reappropriated for the same purposes through September 30, 2027, including broadband middle-mile funds, certain highway funds, FAA research funds, homeless-assistance grants, and fair-housing funds. The dollar amounts are whatever remains unobligated; they are not stated here.
• HUD may use certain older voucher balances to prevent families from losing rental assistance in the 2026 funding cycle, and emergency housing vouchers under lease as of September 30, 2026, are folded into that account’s rules.
• Certain directed set-asides in the 2026 Transportation bill—including language tied to $927.2 million for highway infrastructure and $129 million at NHTSA—are treated as struck for purposes of this stopgap.
• Older transit capital-grant money stays available for payment of valid obligations through fiscal year 2031.
• Energy Department nuclear-weapons and cleanup projects may keep going so named projects are not shut down or demobilized, with notice to the Appropriations Committees within three days of using that authority.
• Military construction funds may be used for unaccompanied housing at the Medical Education Training Complex at Joint Base San Antonio, with limits on which prior emergency or earmarked balances can be tapped.
• Interior may take over remaining work of the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation.
• Treasury may fund operations to host the G7 Financial Summit and related activities.
• A proposed revision of the federal grant rule known as the Uniform Guidance may not be issued, finalized, or take effect through December 11, 2026.
• The Office of Management and Budget must give the Appropriations Committees a list of continued rescissions by November 20, 2026.

Who Benefits

Federal employees and the public programs they run are the broad beneficiaries, because the bill is meant to prevent a lapse in funding and furloughs. More specific groups include WIC participants and people served by commodity food programs; farmers seeking ownership loans; small businesses seeking SBA-backed loans; disaster survivors relying on FEMA; communities facing wildfires; tribal communities served by newly opened or expanded Indian Health Service facilities; families using HUD rental vouchers, including emergency housing vouchers; people in flood-prone areas covered by the National Flood Insurance Program; rural communities that depend on Essential Air Service; and military housing needs at Joint Base San Antonio. Shipbuilders and the Navy’s prior-year ship programs are the focus of the largest named dollar caps.

Plain English Summary

This is a temporary “keep the lights on” bill, not a new budget. If Congress has not finished the regular 2027 spending bills, this measure lets federal agencies keep operating at about last year’s pace from the start of the fiscal year until December 11, 2026. It blocks most brand-new projects, tries to prevent federal furloughs, and keeps benefits such as food assistance, disaster aid, flood insurance, farm and small-business loans, and housing vouchers from stopping abruptly. A few exceptions have real dollar figures—especially Navy shipbuilding cost overruns, up to about $2.6 billion, and defense-wide security systems, up to about $2.9 billion—but the bill never adds those up into one grand total, and most of the government simply continues at the old rate until a full budget, or the December deadline, arrives.