With the government set to shutdown this Friday and the House and Senate still miles away on from reconciling their differences on spending levels for the rest of the fiscal year, the House last week proposed a short-term CR to fund the government for two weeks after March 4. The House is expected to approve the measure this afternoon. All indications are that the Senate will follow suit later this week.
By my count this will be the fourth CR to fund the government so far in FY 2011. The proposed short-term CR would fund the government at FY 2010 levels for two more weeks, save for a few anomalies and about $4 billion in spending reductions from the termination of eight government programs and numerous earmarks.
The news for critical nuclear security programs at the Defense Department, Energy Department, and State Department remains bleak. The CR would fund NNSA’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account at the FY 2010 level less one Congressional directed earmark. While the proposed year long CR (HR 1) that passed the House on February 19 funds DoD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program at the level of the FY 2011 request, the short-term CR continues to fund this program at the FY 2010 level, which is more than $100 million less than the FY 2011 request.
Finally, the short-term CR retains the current anomaly to fund NNSA’s weapons activities account at the level of the FY 2011 request. Recall that HR 1 cut this account by about $300 million.
