Government shutdown averted

摘要

On September 30, with only hours left in Fiscal Year 2015, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, short-term legislation to keep the federal government from experiencing its second partial shutdown in two years. The stopgap spending legislation provides for the continued flow of appropriations to federal agencies through December 11, but at levels slightly (0.2108 percent) below those of FY 2015, due to the expiration of the two-year Murray-Ryan budget deal of 2013, which shielded the FY 2014 and 2015 budgets from the full effects of sequestration cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The measure also includes, in the words of House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky.), "a few responsible provisions to prevent disastrous, irreversible damage to government programs, or to address current, urgent needs. These changes are limited in scope and non-controversial." Among those provisions are emergency appropriations in the amount of $700 million for Forest Service wildland fire suppression activities.