Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress has appropriated approximately $2 trillion in discretionary budget authority designated for emergencies or OCO/GWOT in support of the broad U.S. government response to the 9/11 attacks and for other related international affairs activities. Currently, there is no overall procedural or statutory limit on the amount of emergency or OCO/GWOT-designated spending that may be appropriated on an annual basis. Both Congress and the President have roles in determining how much emergency or OCO/GWOT spending is provided to federal agencies each fiscal year. The President must separately designate the spending after Congress enacts appropriations for it to be available for expenditure. Through definitions statutorily established by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (BBEDCA; P.L. Debate of what should constitute OCO/GWOT or emergency activities and expenses has shifted over time, reflecting differing viewpoints about the extent, nature, and duration of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. The first request for emergency funding for OCO—not GWOT—was delivered to Congress in April 2009. 112-125 ) amended the BBEDCA to create the Overseas Contingency Ope rations/Global War on Terrorism designation, which provided Congress and the President with an alternate way to exempt funding from the BCA caps without using the emergency designation. The spending limits (or caps ) apply separately to defense and nondefense discretionary budget authority. 115-123 ). Some defense officials and policymakers say OCO funding enables a flexible and timely response to an emergency or contingency and provides a political and fiscal safety valve to the BCA caps and threat of sequestration. Critics, including Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, have described the OCO account as a "slush fund" for military and foreign affairs spending unrelated to contingency operations. Critics argue what was once generally restricted to a fund for replacing combat losses of equipment, resupplying expended munitions, transporting troops to and through war zones, and distributing foreign aid to frontline states has "ballooned into an ambiguous part of the budget to which government financiers increasingly turn to pay for other, at times unrelated, costs." These figures do not include emergency-designated funding appropriated in this period for domestic programs, such as disaster response. Figure 8 depicts the emergency or OCO appropriations for foreign affairs activities. In an amendment to the budget after Congress raised the BCA spending caps as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018; P.L. Congressional Action on the FY2019 OCO Request and Appropriations

Congress has appropriated a total of $68.8 billion for DOD OCO funding in FY2019, including the following amounts:
$67.9 billion in defense funds provided in the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 ( P.L. 24 states, "Congress should eliminate the final two years of caps under the BCA." In FY2019 budget documents from OMB and DOD, the Trump Administration projected increasing defense spending in FY2020 and FY2021 beyond the statutory limits of the Budget Control Act of 2011 ( P.L. How Much OCO Funding Could Shift to the DOD Base Budget? The panel concluded that relying on OCO funding to increase the defense budget "is not the way to provide adequate and stable resources" for the type of great power competition outlined in the Secretary of Defense's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), which calls for the United States to bolster its competitive military advantage relative to threats posed by China and Russia:
Because of budgetary constraints imposed by the BCA, lawmakers and the Department of Defense have increasingly relied upon the overseas contingency operations (OCO) fund to pay for warfighting operations in the greater Middle East, as well as other activities and initiatives. The act also allows for appropriations to be designated by Congress and the President as emergency requirements or for Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism . Such appropriations are effectively exempt from the statutory discretionary spending limits. Funding for certain DOD contingency operations has been moved to the base budget request, and is no longer designated as emergency or OCO/GWOT requirements.
Congressional interest in Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) funding has continued as Members debate ways of funding priorities without breaching discretionary spending limits set in law.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress has appropriated approximately $2 trillion in discretionary budget authority designated as emergency requirements or for Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism (OCO/GWOT) in support of the broad U.S. government response to the 9/11 attacks and for other related international affairs activities. This figure amounts to approximately 9.4% of total discretionary spending during this period.
Congress has used supplemental appropriation acts or designated funding for emergency requirements or OCO/GWOT—or both—in statute. These funds are not subject to limits on discretionary spending in congressional budget resolutions or to the statutory discretionary spending limits established by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-125). The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (BBEDCA; P.L. 99-177) allows emergency funding to be excluded from budget control limits. The BCA added the OCO/GWOT designation to the BBEDCA exemption, thereby providing Congress and the President with an alternate way to exclude funding from the BCA spending limits.
While there is no overall statutory limit on the amount of emergency or OCO/GWOT spending, both Congress and the President have fundamental roles in determining how much of the spending to provide each fiscal year. Congress must designate any such funding in statute on an account-by-account basis. The President is also required to designate it as such after it is appropriated to be available for expenditure. Debate over what should constitute OCO/GWOT or emergency activities and expenses has shifted over time, reflecting differing viewpoints about the extent, nature, and duration of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Funding designated for OCO/GWOT has also been used to fund base-budget requirements of the DOD and State Department and to prevent or respond to crises abroad, including armed conflict, as well as human-caused and natural disasters.
Some defense officials and policymakers argue OCO funding allows for flexible response to contingencies, and provides a "safety valve" to the spending caps and threat of sequestration—the automatic cancellation of budget authority largely through across-the-board reductions of nonexempt programs and activities—under the BCA. Critics, however, have described OCO/GWOT as a loophole or "gimmick"—morphing from an account for replacing combat losses of equipment, resupplying expended munitions, and transporting troops through war zones, to a "slush fund" for activities unrelated to contingency operations.
Congress appropriated approximately $103 billion for OCO in FY2017 (8.5% of all discretionary appropriations), $78 billion for OCO in FY2018 (5.5% of all discretionary appropriations), and $68.8 billion for OCO so far in FY2019. Discretionary appropriations for FY2019 are not yet final; a continuing resolution expired December 21, 2018.
Following passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123), which raised discretionary budget caps for defense and foreign affairs agencies in FY2018 and FY2019, the Administration proposed shifting some OCO funding into the base, or regular, budget. Although Congress has generally not followed Administration requests for reduced funding for foreign affairs and domestic activities and has increased funding for defense, the President has asked cabinet secretaries to propose spending cuts of 5% in FY2020. Such proposals, if requested in a budget submission, may create difficult choices for Congress in FY2020 and FY2021—the final two years of the BCA discretionary spending limits. Congress's decisions on OCO/GWOT designations will affect how much agency funding is available for military operations and foreign affairs activities overseas, how much is subject to the BCA caps, and how much is incorporated into regular budgets and long-term budget projections.