Appropriations bill (United States)

In the United States Congress, an appropriations bill is legislation to appropriate federal funds to specific federal government departments, agencies and programs. The money provides funding for operations, personnel, equipment and activities. Regular appropriations bills are passed annually, with the funding they provide covering one fiscal year. The fiscal year is the accounting period of the federal government, which runs from October 1 to September 30 of the following year. Appropriations bills are under the jurisdiction of the United States House Committee on Appropriations and the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. Both committees have twelve matching subcommittees, each tasked with working on one of the twelve annual regular appropriations bills.

There are three types of appropriations bills: regular appropriations bills, continuing resolutions, and supplemental appropriations bills. Regular appropriations bills are the twelve standard bills that cover the funding for the federal government for one fiscal year to be enacted into law by October 1. If Congress has not enacted the regular appropriations bills by that time, it may pass a continuing resolution, which generally continues the pre-existing appropriations at the same levels as the previous fiscal year (or with minor modifications) for a set amount of time. If Congress fails to pass an appropriation bill or a continuing resolution, or if the president vetoes a passed bill, it may result in a government shutdown. The third type of appropriations bills are supplemental appropriations bills, which add additional funding above and beyond what was originally appropriated at the beginning of the fiscal year. Supplemental appropriations bills may be used for areas of sudden need, such as disaster relief.

Appropriations bills are one part of a larger United States budget and spending process. They are preceded in that process by the president's budget proposal, congressional budget resolutions, and the 302(b) allocation. Article I, section 9, clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution states that "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law..." This is what gives Congress the power to make these appropriations. The president, however, still has the power to veto appropriations bills. However, the president does not have line-item veto authority, so they must either sign the entire bill into law or veto it.

Appropriations bills deal with discretionary spending (that is, spending which lapses at the end of the year unless renewed) and can be subject to a filibuster in the Senate (meaning debate can only be ended by a cloture motion supported by three-fifths of senators); unlike bills dealing with mandatory spending, they cannot be subject to reconciliation (a special procedure which bypasses normal filibuster rules).

There are three types of appropriations bills: regular appropriations bills, continuing resolutions, and supplemental appropriations bills. In any given fiscal year, all three may be used.

Traditionally, regular appropriations bills have provided most of the federal government's annual funding. The text of the bill is divided into "accounts" with some larger agencies having several separate accounts (for things like salaries or research/development) and some smaller agencies just having one. The appropriations bill provides a specified amount of money for each individual account, and can also include conditions or restrictions on the use of the money.

Agencies cannot move money from one account to another without permission from Congress (or having the president declare a national emergency), which can be found in some appropriations bills. These are known as transfers. Agencies can shift some of the funding around to different activities within the same account, known as reprogramming. The appropriations subcommittees oversee such changes.

Occasionally Congress packages several of the twelve appropriations bills into one larger bill called an omnibus spending bill or an omnibus appropriation measure. Often the bills are considered separately at the beginning and get combined later because inability to pass bills individually has led to the exigency of a potential government shutdown. Omnibus bills can "veto-proof" items: measures that the president would otherwise veto can be passed by folding them into an omnibus bill, the vetoing of which would be perceived as harmful.