Congress has been on recess throughout August with legislators particularly focused on the Democratic nominating convention and other election and campaign activities. When they return on September 9^th though, there will be a notable amount of legislative work and a limited number of legislative days to make progress. Most notably, Congress will need to pass a Continuing Appropriations Resolution (CR) by midnight on Monday, September 30^th or risk a government shutdown.

Before leaving DC, the House marked up all twelve of its annual Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 appropriations bills and reported them out of committee. However, deep funding cuts and position pill policy rider prevented most bills from being considered by the full House. The Senate marked up and reported out eleven spending bills in notable bipartisan fashion with measures that feature modest funding increases. The Senate held back the FY 2025 Homeland Security Bill (which funds the boarder and is politically charged) and is also working on a package of emergency supplemental spending to increase non-defense funding by $13.5 billion and defense spending by $21 billion.

Recently, passage of a CR has been contentious and divisive despite the essential nature of the procedure. To date, there has been little fanfare about the CR or a potential supplemental spending package. With the November elections looming though, this could be the calm before the storm.

Both the House and Senate bills level-fund the CTSA program and provide measured increases for other spending priorities. The community is gearing up for advocacy and congressional outreach to ensure any final FY 2025 spending measures provide the largest possible increases for medical research, including the CTSA program.

By: Dane Christiansen, Washington Representative