Department of State and Foreign Operations Appropriations: History of Legislation and Funding in Brief

Summary: Congress currently appropriates most foreign affairs funding through annual Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations. Prior to FY2008, however, Congress provided funding for the Department of State, international broadcasting, and related programs within the Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies appropriations. In those years, Congress separately appropriated funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and foreign aid within the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs appropriations. The 110th Congress aligned the two foreign affairs appropriations into the SFOPS legislation.

Summary: SFOPS appropriations since FY2001 have included enduring appropriations (ongoing or base funding), emergency supplemental appropriations, and Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) appropriations. Total SFOPS funding levels in both current and constant dollars show a general upward trend, with FY2004 as the peak largely as a result of emergency supplemental appropriations for Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Funds. When adjusted for inflation, annual foreign affairs appropriations have yet to surpass the FY2004 peak. The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 and the Bipartisan Budget Acts (BBA) of 2015 and 2018 appear to have had an impact on both enduring and OCO funding levels.

Summary: The legislative history of SFOPS appropriations shows that nearly all foreign affairs appropriations measures within the past 25 years were passed within omnibus, consolidated, or full-year continuing resolutions, rather than in stand-alone bills. Moreover, many appropriations were passed after the start of the new fiscal year, at times more than half way into the new fiscal year. In many fiscal years, SFOPS appropriations included emergency supplemental funding or, since FY2012, OCO funding.

Congress appropriates foreign affairs funding primarily through annual Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations. Prior to FY2008, however, Congress provided funds for the Department of State and international broadcasting within the Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies appropriations (CJS) and separately provided foreign aid funds within Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs appropriations.

The transition between the different alignments occurred in the 109 th Congress, with a change in appropriations subcommittee jurisdiction. For that Congress, the House of Representatives appropriated State Department funds separately from foreign aid, as in earlier Congresses, but the Senate differed by appropriating State and foreign aid funds within one bill—the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations. Both the House and Senate began jointly funding Department of State and foreign aid appropriations within the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 ( P.L. 110-161 ).

SFOPS appropriations currently include State Department Operations (including accounts for Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance, and Education and Cultural Affairs, among others); Foreign Operations (including USAID administration expenses, bilateral economic assistance, international security assistance, multilateral assistance, and export assistance); various international commissions; and International Broadcasting (including VOA, RFE/RL, Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks). While the distribution varies slightly from year to year, Foreign Operations funding is typically about twice as much as State Operations funding.

In addition to regular, enduring SFOPS appropriations, Congress has approved emergency supplemental funding requested by Administrations to address emergency or otherwise off-cycle budget needs. Since FY2012, Congress has also appropriated Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding requested within the regular budget process for Department of State and USAID war-related expenses.

This report lists the legislative and funding history of SFOPS appropriations and includes funding trends.

Nearly all foreign affairs appropriations within the past 25 years were passed within omnibus, consolidated, or full-year continuing resolutions, rather than in stand-alone bills, and usually after the start of the new fiscal year. Many foreign policy experts contend that stand-alone appropriations legislation would allow for a more rigorous debate on specific foreign policy activities and improve the ability to introduce or fund new programs, or cancel and defund existing programs. Such experts assert that the frequent practice of passing continuing resolutions and delaying passage of appropriations well into the next fiscal year has hindered program planning (not just in foreign affairs) and has reduced the ability to fund programs that did not exist in the previous cycle.

In addition to annual appropriations, several laws require Congress to authorize State and foreign operations funding prior to expenditure. Before 2003, Congress typically provided authorization in a biannual Foreign Relations Authorization bill. This practice not only authorized funding for obligation and expenditure, but also provided a forum for more rigorous debate on specific foreign affairs and foreign aid policies and a legislative vehicle for congressional direction. In recent years, the House and Senate have separately introduced or considered foreign relations and foreign aid authorization bills, but none have been enacted.

Table 1 below provides a 25-year history of enacted foreign affairs appropriations laws (excluding short-term continuing resolutions and supplemental appropriations), including the dates they were sent to the President and signed into law. Some observations follow:

Since FY1995, Congress appropriated foreign affairs funding in on-time, freestanding bills once—in 1994 for the FY1995 appropriations year. The last time Congress passed foreign affairs funding on time, but not in freestanding legislation, was for FY1997. Congress included foreign affairs funding within an omnibus, consolidated, or full-year continuing resolution 21 of the past 25 years. FY2006 was the last time Congress enacted freestanding State Department and foreign operations appropriations bills. Six times over the past 25 years, Congress sent the State and foreign operations appropriations to the President in March, April, or May—six to eight months into the fiscal year.

Since realignment of the foreign affairs appropriations legislation in FY2008, SFOPS appropriations measures have included State Department Operations, Foreign Operations, various international commissions, and International Broadcasting. For a full list of the accounts included in the FY2019 SFOPS, see Table 2 .

Table 3 and Figure 1 provide the funding levels for enduring funds and Supplemental/OCO funds in the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs for FY2001-2020 request (in current dollars).

Although current funding for State-Foreign Operations generally has grown since FY2001, there was a spike in funding in FY2004 that can, in large part, be attributed to supplemental funding for the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, which provided additional funds in that year. The creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) added to growing funding levels from FY2004-FY2009. OCO became a regular part of foreign affairs funding as of FY2012. Supplemental funding for Ebola in FY2015, Zika in FY2016, and OCO in FY2017 contributed to the rise in funding levels during those years (see Figure 2 ).

The constant dollar trend line generally continues to increase, although at a slower pace than current dollars. FY2004 remains the peak year in constant dollars. The introduction of OCO funding in FY2012 briefly elevated SFOPS funding, but in the following years, funding levels off at nearly the same amount as the FY2012 level. After removing inflation, funding for FY2013 through the FY2020 request declines below that level, suggesting that the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) has kept foreign affairs funding below the rate of inflation.

Enduring vs. Supplemental/OCO Appropriations

The Administration distinguishes between enduring (also called base, regular, or ongoing), emergency supplemental, and Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds. Funds designated as emergency or OCO are not subject to procedural limits on discretionary spending in congressional budget resolutions, or the statutory discretionary spending limits provided through the Budget Control Act of 2011 for FY2011-FY2021 (BCA, P.L. 112-25 ).

Prior to FY2012, the President typically submitted to Congress additional funding requests (after the initial annual budget request), referred to as emergency supplementals. Supplemental funding packages have historically been approved to address emergency, war-related, or otherwise off-cycle budget needs. The Obama Administration requested emergency supplemental appropriations for urgent unexpected expenses, such as the U.S. international responses to Ebola, the Zika virus, and famine relief to Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Northeast Nigeria. The Trump Administration has not requested supplemental funding for unexpected international crises.

In contrast to emergency supplemental appropriations, the Obama Administration included within the regular budget request in FY2012 what it described as short-term, temporary, war-related funding for the frontline states of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—designated as Overseas Contingency Operations funds, or OCO. Congress had used the OCO designation in earlier years for Department of Defense appropriations to distinguish between ongoing versus war-related expenditures. In response to the FY2012 SFOPS OCO request, Congress appropriated OCO funds for the Department of State and USAID activities beyond the requested level and for more than just activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

In FY2012, Congress included OCO funds for the three frontline states as well as for Yemen, Somalia, Kenya, and the Philippines. The Obama Administration first requested OCO funds for a country other than the three frontline states in FY2015, when it requested OCO funds for Syria. In FY2018, the Trump Administration requested OCO funds for the Department of State and USAID activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as "High Threat/High Risk" areas. These included Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan, among others. The Administration's initial FY2019 request included OCO funds for the Department of State and USAID, but after passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018, P.L. 115-123 ), the Administration requested that all previously requested SFOPS OCO funds be moved to enduring funds. For FY2020, the Trump Administration again requested no OCO funds for foreign affairs agencies.

Since FY2012, OCO has ranged from a low of 14% of the total budget request in FY2014 to a high of 36% in FY2017, when the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA 2015, P.L. 114-74 ) set nonbinding OCO minimums for FY2016 and FY2017. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018, P.L. 115-123 ) raised discretionary spending limits for FY2018 and FY2019 and extended direct spending reductions through FY2027. With the raised spending limits, the Trump Administration's FY2019 budget request did not include the OCO designation for any foreign assistance funds. However, Congress has continued to appropriate OCO funds, including $8.0 billion in FY2019. The Administration's FY2020 budget request also does not request OCO funds for State-Foreign Operations appropriations.

The BCA and BBAs have had an effect on foreign affairs funding levels and may have future implications. The Budget Control Act of 2011 sets limits on discretionary spending through FY2021 for defense and nondefense funding categories. Because OCO funds are not counted against the discretionary spending limits, the BCA has put downward pressure on SFOPS enduring/base funds, while OCO has increasingly funded other foreign affairs activities. In addition, the 2015 BBA significantly increased FY2016 and FY2017 OCO funding for foreign affairs over the requested funding levels in FY2015 and FY2016, further encouraging a migration of funds for ongoing activities into OCO-designated accounts. However, the 2018 BBA has had the opposite effect on foreign affairs OCO, allowing lawmakers to shift OCO funding back into enduring/base accounts.