	FY2015 Chronology

December 16, 2014. The President signed into law the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 ( H.R. 83 / P.L. On November 5 and 10, 2014, the Administration submitted amendments to its FY2015 budget request to address the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State (IS), respectively. The Administration requested an additional $2.89 billion in emergency funding through international affairs accounts for activities related to Ebola, including a $792 million contingency fund. An additional $520 million was requested for the international affairs OCO budget to support efforts to defeat IS and address humanitarian needs related to IS attacks. The House and Senate were unable to pass regular appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year and, therefore, passed H.J.Res. 124 , Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015, on September 17 and 18, respectively. The President signed the CR into law ( P.L. 113-164 ) on September 19, 2014. The CR funded government agencies and programs at an across-the-board reduction of .0554% below the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 ( P.L. 113-76 ), funding rate through December 11, 2014. OCO funds were not subject to the reduction. The CR included some anomalies, with one for foreign affairs: Section 145 provided the Department of State with the ability to exceed the rate for operations that would otherwise apply to funds in a number of accounts—International Broadcasting Operations, Economic Support Fund (ESF), Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR), International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE), and Foreign Military Financing (FMF)—to sustain assistance for Ukraine and other independent states in that region. Two additional CRs— P.L. 113-202 and H.J.Res. 131 —kept the government funded until the full-year appropriations bill was signed into law. On June 27, the Administration amended its OCO request, asking for an additional $1.35 billion in State-Foreign Operations OCO funds (out of a total $65.8 billion OCO request, mostly for Department of Defense programs) for peacekeeping and counterterrorism activities. On June 19, 2014, the Senate Appropriations Committee introduced and passed S. 2499 , an SFOPS appropriation for FY2015 that totaled $47.18 billion. 5013 , on June 27, which recommended total funding of $48.45 billion. The Obama Administration submitted its original FY2015 budget request, including for International Affairs (function 150), to Congress on March 4, 2014. Of the total FY2015 foreign a ffairs request, $17.09 billion wa s for State Department Operations and related agencies, a 7.8% increase from the FY2014 funding estimate of $15.86 billion. For Foreign Op erations, the Administration requested $32.99 billion, a 2.2% decrease from the FY2014 estimate of $33.72 billion. The FY2015 State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) Appropriations Request

The amended FY2015 foreign affairs request (about 1% of the total FY2015 budget request) would have increased overall SFOPS funding by 8.8% from the FY2014 funding estimate. The amended Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) portion of the FY2015 request was 14.6%, compared to 13.3% in FY2014, and 5% of the amended request was designated as emergency Ebola funding. Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)

For the FY2015 foreign affairs budget, the Administration requested $7.785 billion (as amended) for OCO—more than double the $3.8 billion requested in FY2014, and 19% more than Congress appropriated for that year (after rescissions). The House committee bill, H.R. The final FY2015 appropriation included $9.26 billion for OCO, more than either House or Senate proposals, largely because of additional OCO funding to counter the Islamic State (IS). Since FY2012, the Administration's foreign affairs budget has distinguished between what it has interchangeably called "enduring", "base," or "ongoing" funding, and funding to support "overseas contingency operations" (OCO), described in budget documents as "extraordinary, but temporary, costs of the Department of State and USAID in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan." The Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative

The Obama Administration added to its FY2015 budget a new government-wide proposal referred to as the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative. Proposed funding for the initiative covered the following:
$350 million to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), above the requested $1 billion, to develop overseas economic environments and help U.S. businesses be more competitive; $300 million within the Global Health Programs (GHP) account to encourage more funding from other donors to the Global Fund for fighting AIDS, TB, and Malaria; funds for Maternal and Child Health activities within GHP to provide extra momentum toward ending preventable maternal and child deaths; $80 million in multilateral aid for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program; $29.9 million for the Board for International Broadcasting's satellite transmission program, estimated to provide a 31% cost savings; an unspecified amount of funding within the Development Assistance (DA) account to support bilateral and multilateral food security in the Feed the Future Initiative; and support within DA for USAID's Global Development Lab to encourage science, technology, innovation, and partnerships that would promote development. The FY2015-enacted level shows a slight decrease in enduring funds and the peak funding level for OCO/emergency funds, including funds to address IS and the Ebola crisis. State Operations and Related Agencies

The Administration's FY2015 request, as amended, sought to increase funding for the State Department and Related Accounts category by 8.3% over FY2014 estimated levels, to $17.18 billion. In addition, the Administration's FY2015 request, as amended, included a $428 million Peacekeeping Response Mechanism (PKRM), a new proposal intended to support urgent peacekeeping needs, including $278 million for a recently authorized U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. (Both bills were reported before the Administration revised its Foreign Operations OCO request upward to $5.47 billion). 113-235 , included $7.49 billion in foreign operations funds designated as OCO, a 46% increase over FY2014 and higher than the Administration's request and both the House and Senate bills. However, with the growing humanitarian needs created by the Ebola epidemic in Africa and the deteriorating environment in Iraq and Syria, the Administration requested an additional $1.49 billion in IDA funds in November 2014. The FY2014 appropriation did not adopt these reforms, but new authorizing legislation in the 2014 Farm Bill (Agricultural Act of 2014, P.L. Africa Initiatives. The Senate committee report recommended $1 billion for this purpose. Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI) . Appendix A. State-Foreign Operations Appropriations, by Account
Appendix B.
On December 16, 2014, Congress presented the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 83), to the President, who signed it into law (P.L. 113-235) that same day. In Division J of that act, Congress appropriated $51.98 billion for the Department of State and Foreign Operations, including $9.26 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) and $2.53 billion to address the Ebola crisis.
The annual State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill (also referred to here as "foreign affairs appropriations" or "foreign affairs funding") is the primary legislative vehicle through which Congress reviews the U.S. international affairs budget and influences executive branch foreign policymaking. (Foreign relations authorization and foreign assistance authorization legislation, required by law prior to State Department and foreign aid expenditures, are also available to Congress to influence foreign policy, but Congress has not passed either since FY2003 and FY1985, respectively. Instead, Congress has waived the requirement within the appropriations laws.)
On March 4, 2014, the Obama Administration submitted to Congress its budget request for FY2015. The original request for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs totaled $48.62 billion, including $5.91 billion for OCO funding. The Administration amended this request on June 27, 2014 by increasing OCO funds and updating export assistance estimates, thus raising the overall total to $50.08 billion. The Administration further amended the request in November 2014 for emergency funding to address the Ebola crisis in Africa and for civilian activities to counter the threat posed by the Islamic State (IS). The amended FY2015 request totaled $53.50 billion, 8.8% more than the FY2014-enacted level.
Of the total FY2015 request, as amended, 14.6% was designated as OCO (compared to 13.3% in FY2014) and 5.4% was designated as emergency funding (compared to no emergency funding in FY2014). $17.18 billion was for State Department Operations and related agencies, an 8.3% increase from the FY2014 funding estimate of $15.86 billion. For Foreign Operations, the Administration requested $36.32 billion, a 7.7% increase from the FY2014 estimate of $33.72 billion.
Key aspects of the Administration request that interested some Members of the 113th Congress included
$4.59 billion requested for enduring diplomatic security funding to continue implementing post-Benghazi Accountability Review Board recommendations in FY2015, 4.7% more than estimated for these same accounts in FY2014; a twice-amended OCO request for funding to the frontline states of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; including an additional $278 million for estimated costs of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic within the new Peacekeeping Response Mechanism (PKRM); an additional $75 million within Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for security reform in Europe; $1 billion to enhance counterterrorism and crisis response activities within a Counterterrorism Partnership Fund; and $520 million to assist Syrian opposition groups and address humanitarian needs related to IS attacks in Iraq and Syria. $2.896 billion for humanitarian and health care activities related to the Ebola virus outbreak, including a $792 million contingency fund to increase flexibility in addressing future Ebola-related needs. support for the Administration's ongoing development initiatives: Global Health, Global Climate Change, and Feed the Future, as well as $114.3 million for new Africa initiatives; and an additional request for a new government-wide Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative that would provide more than $760 million to foreign affairs programs, beyond the regular budget request.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees reported FY2015 SFOPs bills out of committee on June 27 and June 9, respectively. The House committee bill (H.R. 5013) recommended $48.45 billion in total, including $5.19 billion designated as OCO. The Senate committee bill (S. 2499) recommended a funding total of $47.18 billion, with $8.63 billion designated as OCO. Both bills were reported before the Administration amended the OCO request, twice, and requested emergency funds to address the Ebola outbreak. Final funding levels are compared to FY2014 funding estimates and the FY2015 request (as amended, when noted) throughout this report and in Appendix A and Appendix B.
Since the House and Senate were unable to pass regular appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year, they passed H.J.Res. 124, Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015 (CR), on September 17 and 18, 2014, respectively. The President signed the CR into law (P.L. 113-164) on September 19, 2014. The CR funded government agencies and programs at an across-the-board reduction of .0554% below the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (P.L. 113-76), funding rate through December 11, 2014. OCO funds were not subject to the reduction. The CR included some anomalies, including one for foreign affairs that provided the Department of State with the ability to exceed the rate for operations applied to funds in a number of accounts in order to sustain assistance for Ukraine and other independent states in that region for programs, such as international broadcasting, economic, and security assistance.
Two additional CRs—P.L. 113-202 and H.J.Res. 131—were passed to keep the government funded until passage of the full-year appropriations bill could occur.
Total funding for the State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs over the past 10 years has ranged from a low of $35.85 billion (including supplemental appropriations) in FY2006 to a high of $53.00 billion in FY2012 (including war-related Overseas Contingency Operations, OCO, appropriations). With the exception of FY2015, it has declined each year since FY2012, attributable, perhaps, to passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA, P.L. 112-25). Appendix A (State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs) and Appendix B (function 150) tables provide side-by-side account-level funding data for FY2014 estimated funding, the amended FY2015 request, and FY2015-enacted levels.