Congress Will Pursue Continuing Resolution to Keep Government Open Through March

Lawmakers will work during the lame-duck session to pass another short-term spending measure to keep the government open through March 31, 2017.

House and Senate leadership have decided not to move ahead with any fiscal 2017 appropriations bills this year, instead opting to push through another continuing resolution at the current rate of funding for agencies. The current CR, which Congress passed just two days before fiscal 2017 began on Oct. 1, expires on Dec. 9.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said he was “disappointed” that Congress would not complete its annual funding duties this year, but that he was “extremely hopeful” that the new Congress and incoming Trump administration would finish the bills. “I am also hopeful for a renewed and vigorous ‘regular order’ on future annual funding bills, so that the damaging process of continuing resolutions will no longer be necessary,” Rogers said in a statement.

Rogers said his committee would begin work “immediately” on a CR to fund the government through March.