The lights were still on in Washington Friday after Congress approved a stopgap budget to prevent a government shutdown, at least through Dec. 3, while it works on other legislation and works toward a permanent 2022 budget.
President Joe Biden signed the bill Thursday evening not long after the House voted 254-175 to send congressional Democrats’ second attempt at a continuing resolution to the White House. The Senate advanced the measure on a 65-35 vote earlier in the day.
The second iteration of the stopgap budget is largely the same as the one Senate Republicans filibustered earlier this week, but it removes language about raising the national debt ceiling — a move that the GOP argued Democrats should make alone through a weeks-long process known as budget reconciliation.
Under the continuing resolution, the government will stay open through the beginning of the new fiscal year, until Dec. 3. During that time, Congress will continue to work out a compromise spending plan based on appropriations bills passed separately in the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee this summer.
The continuing resolution would leave federal agencies, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at 2021 funding levels. For NRC, that means around 6% less funding than the 2022 appropriations bills that were still working their way through Congress at deadline. The agency’s budget would have remained at around $830 million, rather than the roughly $890 million greenlit by the House and Senate this summer.
