Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014
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The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (, nicknamed the Cromnibus) is an
omnibus spending bill An omnibus spending bill is a type of bill in the United States that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill that can be passed with only one vote in each house of Congress. There are twelve differen ...
that packages several
appropriation bills An appropriation bill, also known as supply bill or spending bill, is a proposed law that authorizes the expenditure of government funds. It is a bill that sets money aside for specific spending. In some democracies, approval of the legislature ...
together in one larger bill. The
113th United States Congress The 113th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015, during the fifth and sixth years of Presidency of Barack Obama, Barack Obama's presiden ...
failed to pass any of the twelve regular appropriations bills before the beginning of Fiscal Year 2014. The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 temporarily funded the government from October 1, 2013 to January 15, 2014. A second continuing resolution extended funding until January 18, 2014, giving both the House and the Senate enough time to vote on this bill.


Background

The budget and spending process of the United States federal government is a complex one. The United States budget process traditionally begins when the
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
submits a budget request to Congress. The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit the budget to Congress for each
fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...
, which is the 12-month period beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next calendar year. The current federal budget law ((a)) requires that the President submit his or her budget request between the first Monday in January and the first Monday in February. However, it is Congress that actually establishes the budget, as the U.S. Constitution ( Article I, section 9, clause 7) states that "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." The President does not sign the final budget. In 2013, the House of Representatives passed its budget proposal, , prior to the submission of the President's budget proposal, as did the Senate . The House and Senate
budget resolution The United States budget process is the framework used by Congress and the President of the United States to formulate and create the United States federal budget. The process was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Congr ...
s were not expected to be reconciled as a final budget. President Obama submitted his Fiscal Year 2014 budget proposal on April 10, 2013, two months past the February 4 deadline. The three budgets contained significant differences and were never reconciled. Several attempts were made to carry on with the regular appropriations process. The House passed the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 (, June 4, 2013), the
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2014 The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2014 () is an appropriations bill that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. The bill would appropriate money to variou ...
(, June 6, 2013), the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 (, July 10, 2013), the Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2014 (, September 29, 2013), and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014 (, July 24, 2103). None of these bills were voted on by the Senate. All twelve regular appropriations bills were introduced in the House and the Senate, but these five were the only ones to receive a vote by either body. Congress makes appropriations on a yearly basis. If no appropriations had been made by October 1, 2013, when Fiscal Year 2014 began, the federal government would have to shut down due to lack of funding. With the October 1, 2013 deadline nearing, Congress turned its attention to passing a continuing resolution, which would allow the government to be funded at its existing levels for a set period of time, a move intended to give Congress more time to work out final appropriations without shutting down the government. The bill Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 (H.J.Res 59) () was introduced on September 10, 2013. The bill would have extended government funding until December 15, 2013. Congress was unable to agree on a final version of the bill due to a controversy over defunding the
Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
, commonly known as "Obamacare". The result was the
United States federal government shutdown of 2013 From October 1 to October 17, 2013, the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government entered a Government shutdown in the United States, shutdown and curtailed most routine operations because neither Appropriations b ...
. During the shutdown, House Republicans pursued a strategy of passing "mini" continuing resolutions. These bills would fund small, high-profile portions of the government. None of the bills were taken up by the Senate. After 16 days of a federal government shutdown, Congress was able to agree to a new continuing resolution, and the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 (;) was passed, ending the shutdown. The bill funded the government until January 15, 2014, and suspended the U.S. debt ceiling until February 7, 2014. After several more months of debate, Representative
Paul Ryan Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician who served as the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the ...
and Senator
Patty Murray Patricia Lynn Murray (, October 11, 1950) is an American politician serving in her sixth term as a United States senator from Washington (state), Washington, beginning her tenure in 1993, and is the state's Seniority in the United States Senate, ...
announced a compromise budget on December 10, 2013. That budget was called the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (). As the January 15, 2014 deadline to provide additional appropriations approached, the House and Senate agreed to pass another continuing resolution, this one until January 18, 2014, to provide more time to work on this omnibus appropriations bill.


Provisions of the bill


Open access

Section 527 of the bill is a provision for providing
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
to research publications produced as a result of all taxpayer-funded research. Previously the NIH Public Access Policy had issued an
open access mandate An open-access mandate is a policy adopted by a research institution, research funder, or government which requires or recommends researchers—usually university faculty or research staff and/or research grant recipients—to make their publishe ...
of this sort, requiring that NIH funded research be published in such a way that anyone could review publications presenting it through
PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...
., which highlights the relevant tex
in the source document
/ref> The
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
commented saying, "this is big".


Congressional Budget Office report

''This summary is based on the summary provided by the
Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. I ...
, a
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
source.'' CBO Estimate of Discretionary Appropriations for Fiscal year 2014, Including H.R. 3547, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, as posted on the website of the House Committee on Rules on January 13, 2014.


Procedural history

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (H.R. 3547) began its life as the " Space Launch Liability Indemnification Extension Act" (also H.R. 3547). The Space Launch Liability Indemnification Extension Act was introduced into the
United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
on November 20, 2013 by Rep. Lamar Smith (R, TX-21). It was referred to the
United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is a standing committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development. More specifically, the committee h ...
. On December 2, 2013, the House voted i
Roll Call Vote 612
to pass the bill 376-5. The Senate voted on December 12, 2013 to pass the bill amended by
unanimous consent In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house (or leave of the senate), is a situation in which no member present objects to a propo ...
. This sent the bill back to the House for reconsideration of the amended version. One month later, the House and Senate leadership decided to use H.R. 3547 as a vehicle for passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014. The House leadership intended to vote on an amendment to the bill on January 15, 2014 so that the Senate would have a chance to work on it before the deadline. That amendment turned out to be 1,500 pages long and included all of the consolidated appropriations needed to fund the federal government until October 1, 2014. The original material for the Space Launch Liability Indeminification Extension Act became one paragraph in Section 8.


See also

*
List of bills in the 113th United States Congress The bills of the 113th United States Congress list includes proposed federal laws that were introduced in the 113th United States Congress. This Congress lasted from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015. The United States Congress is the bicamer ...
*
United States budget process The United States budget process is the framework used by Congress and the President of the United States to formulate and create the United States federal budget. The process was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Congre ...


References


External links


Library of Congress - Thomas H.R. 3547beta.congress.gov H.R. 3547GovTrack.us H.R. 3547OpenCongress.org H.R. 3547
Government Sources:
Rules Committee Print 113-32 House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to the Text of H.R. 3547
- this is the text of the bill as it was introduced on January 13, 2014
Congressional Budget Office report on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014
{{US government sources United States federal appropriations in the 113th Congress Acts of the 113th United States Congress