Following Senate action last week, the House Appropriations Committee yesterday released its 302(b) allocations for FY13.  The allocations – to be approved by the Committee this afternoon – divide up the $1.028 trillion discretionary spending cap for FY13, which is based on the House Budget Resolution passed last month and is $19 billion below the Senate top-line spending number.

The Committee provides $48.3 billion for the State-Foreign Operations allocation – $40.1 billion in base funding and $8.2 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding.  The total funding level (base plus OCO) in the House allocation is a concerning $5 billion (-9%) below the Senate’s $53 billion total funding.

Particularly troubling is that State-Foreign Operations received a disproportionately deep 9.4% cut relative to other security accounts (Defense and Homeland Security were each cut between 4% and 5%, respectively, including OCO funding).  Looking at all discretionary accounts, only one – Transportation-HUD – received a larger cut (9.9%) from current spending than State-Foreign Operations.

What is particularly important about the State-Foreign Operations allocation is the different way House and Senate appropriators use the OCO account.  The Senate shifted nearly $5 billion from OCO (war-related funding) back to base funding.  The result of this shift, coupled with the lower overall funding levels, yields a large gap – $9.7 billion (19.5%) – between the House and Senate’s base funding levels.

USGLC issued a press release today in opposition of the House’s funding cut and calling on Congress to support no less than the Senate allocation for the State-Foreign Operations bill.

State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Snapshot*

*95% of the International Affairs Budget is included in the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. The remaining 5% includes international food aid programs in the Agriculture Appropriations bill and miscellaneous commissions in the Commerce-Justice-Science bill. A small amount of funding is provided in the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for non-International Affairs programs.

Next Steps 

The House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee is set to mark up the FY13 appropriations bill the week of May 7^th, with full Committee markup following shortly thereafter.  The bill could come to the floor as early as mid-June, where non-war related programs would be very susceptible to further deep cuts, but the schedule is still in flux.  The Senate schedule is yet to be determined.