After much speculation, and on the final day of the fiscal year, the House and Senate passed a continuing resolution (CR) (H.J. Res. 107) to fund non-defense government programs and agencies, and other expiring programs, at current levels through Nov. 20. The CR was needed because Congress failed to perform one of its key duties on time -- the appropriation of funds for government programs. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) observed, "The Republicans' failure to pass appropriation bills on time has real-world consequences to real people, to states, localities, municipalities, and every individual."

The Sept. 30 passage precedes a lame-duck session likely to begin the week of Nov. 15, in which Congress will have to complete unfinished legislation, including:

• The Defense Reauthorization bill
• The Foreign Sales Corporation and Extraterritorial Income Exclusion (FSC/ETI) bill
• The Intelligence Reform bill
• A bill to raise the debt ceiling.

Besides the continuing resolution, it appears an omnibus spending bill will be necessary to pass all of the appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year. To date, the House has passed 12 bills, and the Senate, only six. Only one bill -- the defense appropriations bill -- has made it through conference committee.

House Appropriations Chairman Don Young (R-AK) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) would each like to report out of committee four of the FY 2005 appropriations measures as stand-alone bills. This would leave eight, instead of 12, to be passed through an omnibus. The four they are considering are Foreign Operations, Homeland Security, Military Construction, and Washington, DC.

The House is expected to officially appoint conferees to the Homeland Security measure (H.R. 4567) sometime this week. Movement on that bill has been stalled because of continuing negotiations concerning hurricane and drought relief. While Senate Majority leaders are pushing to make sure there is drought aid, Minority Leader Tom Daschle and other Democrats are accusing the Bush administration of ignoring the needs of farm states.