II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 499
To amend title 31, United States Code, to provide for automatic continuing
resolutions.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY10, 2025
Mr. P
AULintroduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to
the Committee on Appropriations
A BILL
To amend title 31, United States Code, to provide for
automatic continuing resolutions.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Government Shutdown 4
Prevention Act of 2025’’. 5
SEC. 2. AUTOMATIC CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS. 6
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Chapter 13 of title 31, United 7
States Code, is amended by inserting after section 1310 8
the following new section: 9
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‘‘§ 1311. Continuing appropriations 1
‘‘(a)(1) On and after the first day of each fiscal year, 2
if an appropriation Act for such fiscal year with respect 3
to the account for a program, project, or activity has not 4
been enacted and continuing appropriations are not in ef-5
fect with respect to the program, project, or activity, there 6
are appropriated, at the rate for operations specified in 7
paragraph (2), such sums as may be necessary to continue 8
the program, project, or activity if funds were provided 9
for the program, project, or activity during the preceding 10
fiscal year— 11
‘‘(A) in the corresponding appropriation Act for 12
such preceding fiscal year; or 13
‘‘(B) if the corresponding appropriation bill for 14
such preceding fiscal year did not become law, in a 15
law making continuing appropriations for such pre-16
ceding fiscal year. 17
‘‘(2)(A) Subject to subparagraph (C), appropriations 18
and funds made available, and authority granted, for a 19
program, project, or activity for any fiscal year pursuant 20
to this section shall be at a rate of operations not in excess 21
of the lower of— 22
‘‘(i) 94 percent of the rate of operations pro-23
vided for in the regular appropriation Act providing 24
for such program, project, or activity for the pre-25
ceding fiscal year; 26
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‘‘(ii) in the absence of such an Act, 94 percent 1
of the rate of operations provided for such program, 2
project, or activity pursuant to a law making con-3
tinuing appropriations for such preceding fiscal year; 4
or 5
‘‘(iii) 94 percent of the annualized rate of oper-6
ations provided for in the most recently enacted law 7
making continuing appropriations for part of that 8
fiscal year or any funding levels established under 9
the provisions of this section, 10
for the period of 90 days. After the first 90-day period 11
during which this subsection is in effect for that fiscal 12
year, the applicable rate of operations shall be reduced by 13
1 percentage point. For each subsequent 90-day period 14
during which this subsection is in effect for that fiscal 15
year, the applicable rate of operations shall be reduced by 16
1 percentage point. The 90-day period reductions shall ex-17
tend beyond the last day of that fiscal year. 18
‘‘(B) If this section is in effect at the end of a fiscal 19
year, funding levels shall continue as provided in this sec-20
tion for the next fiscal year. 21
‘‘(C) For entitlements and other mandatory pay-22
ments whose budget authority was provided for the pre-23
vious fiscal year in appropriations Acts, under a law other 24
than this section providing continuing appropriations for 25
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such previous year, or under this section, and for activities 1
under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, appropriations 2
and funds made available during a fiscal year under this 3
section shall be at the rate necessary to maintain program 4
levels under current law, under the authority and condi-5
tions provided in the applicable appropriations Act. 6
‘‘(3) Appropriations and funds made available, and 7
authority granted, for any fiscal year pursuant to this sec-8
tion for a program, project, or activity shall be available 9
for the period beginning with the first day of a lapse in 10
appropriations and ending with the date on which the ap-11
plicable regular appropriation bill for such fiscal year be-12
comes law (whether or not such law provides for such pro-13
gram, project, or activity) or a continuing resolution mak-14
ing appropriations becomes law, as the case may be. 15
‘‘(4) During any period during which amounts are 16
being made available under this section, the head of each 17
agency, office, or other establishment to which such 18
amounts are being made available shall apportion such 19
amounts in the same proportion as amounts made avail-20
able to the agency, office, or other establishment were ap-21
portioned during the previous fiscal year. 22
‘‘(b) An appropriation or funds made available, or au-23
thority granted, for a program, project, or activity for any 24
fiscal year pursuant to this section shall be subject to the 25
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terms and conditions imposed with respect to the appro-1
priation made or funds made available for the preceding 2
fiscal year, or authority granted for such program, project, 3
or activity under current law. 4
‘‘(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this sec-5
tion, for those programs, projects, or activities that would 6
otherwise have high initial rates of operation or complete 7
distribution of appropriations at the beginning of a fiscal 8
year for which funding is made available under this section 9
because of distributions of funding to States, foreign coun-10
tries, grantees, or others, such high initial rates of oper-11
ation or complete distribution shall not be made, and no 12
grants shall be awarded for such programs, projects, or 13
activities funded by this section that would impinge on 14
final funding prerogatives. 15
‘‘(d) Expenditures made for a program, project, or 16
activity for any fiscal year pursuant to this section shall 17
be charged to the applicable appropriation, fund, or au-18
thorization whenever a regular appropriation bill or a 19
measure making continuing appropriations until the end 20
of a fiscal year providing for such program, project, or 21
activity for such period becomes law. 22
‘‘(e) This section shall not apply to a program, 23
project, or activity during a fiscal year if any other provi-24
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sion of law (other than an authorization of appropria-1
tions)— 2
‘‘(1) makes an appropriation, makes funds 3
available, or grants authority for such program, 4
project, or activity to continue for such period; or 5
‘‘(2) specifically provides that no appropriation 6
shall be made, no funds shall be made available, or 7
no authority shall be granted for such program, 8
project, or activity to continue for such period.’’. 9
(b) C
LERICALAMENDMENT.—The table of sections 10
of chapter 13 of title 31, United States Code, is amended 11
by inserting after the item relating to section 1310 the 12
following new item: 13
‘‘1311. Continuing appropriations.’’.
Æ
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