Some provisions of law authorize the Congress to provide funds through a future appropriation act to carry out a program or function. Such authorizations of appropriations differ from other authorizations (sometimes called enabling or organic statutes), which create a federal agency, establish a federal program, prescribe a federal function, or provide for a particular federal obligation or expenditure within a program. Authorizations of appropriations also differ from the actual appropriations, which provide funding.
Section 202(e)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires that the Congressional Budget Office report to the Congress by January 15 of each year on the following:
- All programs and activities whose authorizations of appropriations will expire during the current year, and
- All programs and activities funded for the current year whose authorizations of appropriations have expired.
This data file includes a spreadsheet cataloging every explicit authorization of appropriations from CBO’s Legislative Classification System (LCS); it also includes instructions for sorting the data and a glossary of relevant terms. The spreadsheet specifies the date when each authorization expired or is set to expire and the amount authorized to be appropriated in the last fiscal year covered by that authorization. The most recent public law analyzed for this spreadsheet is the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024 and Other Extensions Act (Public Law 118-15), which was enacted on September 30, 2023—the end of fiscal year 2023.
This spreadsheet does not associate any appropriations made under short-term continuing resolutions for fiscal year 2024 with expired authorizations. CBO expects to post an updated spreadsheet when it publishes Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations: Fiscal Year 2024 later this year after full-year appropriations are enacted.
Originally published at https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59684
