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Summary

Traditionally, most of the operations of federal departments and agencies are funded each year through separate enactment of several regular, annual appropriations acts. Since these measures expire at the end of the fiscal year, the regular, annual appropriations bills for the subsequent fiscal year must be enacted by October 1. However, final action on one or more regular appropriations bills is typically delayed beyond the deadline. When this occurs, the affected departments and agencies are generally funded under temporary continuing appropriations acts until the final funding decisions become law. Because continuing appropriations acts typically are enacted in the form of joint resolutions, such acts are referred to as continuing resolutions (or CRs). CRs generally can be divided into two categories -- those that provide interim (or temporary) funding and those that provide funds through the end of the fiscal year. Interim continuing resolutions provide funding until a specific date or until the enactment of the applicable regular appropriations acts. Full-year continuing resolutions provide continuing appropriations through the end of the fiscal year. Over the past 35 years, the nature, scope, and duration of continuing resolutions gradually expanded and, then, generally contracted. From the early 1970s through 1987, CRs gradually expanded from interim funding measures of comparatively brief duration and length to measures providing funding through the end of the fiscal year. In many cases, the full-year measures included the full text of several regular appropriations bills and contained substantive legislation (i.e., provisions under the jurisdiction of committees other than the House and Senate Appropriations Committees). Since 1988, continuing resolutions have generally been interim funding measures with little substantive legislation. Over the years, delay in the enactment of regular appropriations measures and CRs after the beginning of the fiscal year has led to periods during which appropriations authority has lapsed. Such periods generally are referred to as funding gaps. The President and Congress completed action on three consecutive FY2006 continuing resolutions that together temporarily extended funding from October 1, 2005, through December 31, 2005. Continuing resolutions were needed because final action on all 11 FY2006 regular appropriations bills was not completed until three months (December 30, 2005) after the start of the fiscal year.

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