Senate Appropriations Update: Where We Are

The annual game of hurry-up-and-wait has begun in earnest for those of us who follow the congressional appropriations process.  Although Fiscal Year 2012 officially began on October 1^st, neither the full House nor the full Senate has yet approved legislation to fund the State Department and other international affairs agencies for the upcoming year, and it remains unclear exactly how or when they will do so.

For the past few weeks, the talk in the Senate has been about "minibuses"-combinations of several appropriations bills, which are smaller versions of the large "omnibus" packages to fund the entire federal government to which Congress frequently resorts when it fails to pass individual appropriations bills on time.  The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed the State/Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which provides the bulk of international affairs funding, and this bill was expected to be combined with several other appropriations bills into a minibus and brought to the Senate floor for a vote last week.  However, delays have set in, and the latest word is that no Senate action on a State/Foreign operations bill is likely until at least next week, and possibly even later than that. 

The Senate State/Foreign Ops bill provides a good level of funding for the United Nations budget accounts considering the current fiscal climate.  It would fund the Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account, which pays U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget as well as dues to organizations such as NATO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at a level of $1.58 billion for next year, and provides $1.9 billion to the Contributions to International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA) account, which funds U.N. peacekeeping missions.  These numbers are considerably higher than those approved by the House Appropriations subcommittee last summer for the U.N. accounts.  Citizens for Global Solutions hopes to see a final budget number close to the Senate totals for these important accounts.

So, when it comes to FY12 appropriations, uncertainty abounds as usual.  We'll keep you posted....