Policy Backgrounders

Omnibus Appropriations Bill: Brief Summary of Most Significant Provisions

January 04, 2023

On December 23, Congress approved a $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill covering all Federal spending through September 30, the end of Fiscal Year 2023. Had Congress not acted, the government would have shut down at midnight on December 23. The compromise legislation resulted from negotiations in the Senate between leading appropriators Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, then the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Broadly, the bill provides over $850 billion for defense and $773 billion for domestic spending. The bill also provides $45 billion in assistance for Ukraine (military, economic, and humanitarian) and $27 billion to address FEMA expenses following hurricanes in Florida and Puerto Rico and other natural disasters. Every appropriations bill combined into the omnibus legislation showed a slight increase from Fiscal Year 2022 spending; outside of defense and veterans’ programs, the largest increase ($10.4 billion) was for Labor, HHS, and Education.

Total domestic spending, including for veterans’ programs, rose by $68 billion, or about 9 percent.

Some policy provisions that had been proposed as part of this “must-pass” legislation were not included either in this bill or other actions of the lame-duck session. Notable areas not included were immigration reform, raising the debt ceiling (the government will reach its borrowing limit this year), funding for COVID testing and vaccines, and extending the provision for immediate amortization of research expenses (rather than over a five-year schedule).

However, the omnibus contains important provisions on issues CED has addressed. One theme of the omnibus is Congress’ continuing response to funding and policy issues that arose during the height of the pandemic.