FY19 Appropriations Process Concludes
Today marks the end of the Fiscal Year 2019 appropriations process in DC, which began over a year ago when President Trump released his budget request to Congress for federal agencies and programs. This morning, the president signed legislation that included final spending levels for several federal agencies of interest including the National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, research agencies fared relatively well and student financial aid programs were level-funded. A breakdown of FY19 research and student aid funding is provided below.
Background on FY19 – During the early stages of the process, Congress engaged federal agency leaders and constituency groups in order to assess the president’s budget request. During the months that followed, the House and Senate appropriations committees gave bipartisan support for increasing research and student aid programs over what the administration requested. In September, Congress approved and the president signed legislation that provided FY19 funding for several agencies. The initial set of agencies funded included some of interest to the higher education community, such as the Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. At that point, the White House indicated that it would not approve additional full-year spending bills for other agencies unless funding was provided for a southern border wall. Federal agencies not funded by that point were put on temporary spending authority to allow the midterm elections to play out as well as to provide Congress and the White House more time to resolve the border wall disagreement. As widely reported, the stalemate over FY19 appropriations has finally concluded with the president allowing the remaining set of federal agencies to be funded and deciding to pursue a southern border wall through other means.
Please contact the Office of Federal Relations if you have a question about the FY19 funding of a particular agency, program or area of need.