The $463.5 billion spending bill passed 81-15. The President signed the bill the next day, just in time to prevent a government shutdown.

Pressed for time, Senate leaders chose to pass the same version the House approved on Jan. 31, without considering amendments. Congress needed to finish the bill by Feb. 15, when a stopgap continuing resolution would have expired. And amendments could have also forced unpopular cuts across all programs. See this Watcher article for a rundown of the enacted bill.

The joint resolution wiped out about 9,300 earmarks that had been written into the FY06 appropriations bills or their report language. Only funding directives were excluded, with funding levels left the same. This move gives agencies the power to choose how this funding will be spent for FY07. In fact, agencies could decide to use the funding for the same purpose as the earmark directive had instructed.

Indeed, the Department of Energy has announced it will fund earmarked projected from past appropriations bills. Some representatives — notably Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) — have said they will ask agencies to fund canceled earmarks from drafted appropriations bills. In response, the Office of Management and Budget issued non-binding guidance to the agencies to disregard the FY06 earmarks and requests from Congress when they decide how to direct funding.

Enactment of the CR means the formal close of FY 2007 appropriations season. Lawmakers will soon turn to the regular FY 2008 spending bills. Appropriators are expected to act first, though, on the $100 billion FY 2007 war supplemental that President Bush requested at the same time that he sent his FY 2008 budget to Capitol Hill. Despite pleas from Congress and outside budget experts to break their reliance on supplemental funding requests for the war, it appears the administration has no intention of stopping this detrimental practice.

The supplemental is fast becoming a magnet for additional military and non-military funding items, some left unaddressed during the abbreviated debate at the end of the FY 07 appropriations process. Most notable among those items is funding for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission. Lawmakers are also making plans to use the measure to provide money for hurricane recovery and agriculture disaster relief, and perhaps even for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which will face funding shortages as soon as May of this year. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she may seek $1.2 billion in disaster relief for her state to deal with the recent frost damage to crops. And Oregon Senators, Republican Gordon H. Smith and Democrat Ron Wyden, want $400 million for a county payments program, of which their state is a primary beneficiary.