Reconciliation vs Appropriations

Both the reconciliation process and the appropriations process are happening simultaneously this summer, leading to some understandable confusion about the differences between the two processes and what the outcomes may mean for US science. The DC jargon surrounding the terms "budget," "appropriations," and "spending" often fails to clarify things. So, we wrote this blog post to explain the differences.

The main takeaway is that the reconciliation bill, which has been making headlines, sometimes referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill, is a bill that only occurs under a special legislative process called "reconciliation" and primarily deals with taxes and mandatory spending programs. The appropriations bills, commonly referred to as the "spending bills," are the bills that determine the funding levels for discretionary programs, such as our federal science agencies, every fiscal year.

The Reconciliation Process

• Budget reconciliation is a unique legislative process that allows Congress to pass bills related to mandatory spending programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP) and taxes, bypassing the filibuster that would normally require 60 votes in the Senate. 
• The current reconciliation bill is over 900 pages. The major portions include the 2017 tax cuts extending, clean-energy rollbacks and subsidy cuts, modified caps on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, and cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. 
• The reconciliation bill does not determine funding levels for our federal science agencies for fiscal years 2025 or 2026. 
• The reconciliation bill includes a provision to renew the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authority to auction radio spectrum. In the Senate version, this charges the FCC with identifying 800 MHz of spectrum between 1.3 and 10.5 GHz to auction for wireless broadband services. The legislation does not specify protections for radio astronomy and has the potential to impact our ability to make astronomical observations. For more information, check out AIP’s article on the topic. In May, AAS sent a letter to the members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation voicing our concerns over the potential impact of spectrum auctions on the scientific community. 
• The bill also includes a provision that proposes an additional $10 billion for NASA. All of this additional funding, categorized as mandatory spending, would go towards human exploration, with none of it going towards NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. For more information, see this article from Space. 
• The major milestones for the reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as of 2 July 2025: 
  • The bill passed the House on 22 May, with a vote of 215–214. 
  • The bill was then modified and passed by the Senate by a vote of 51–50. 
  • The current version of the bill now needs to pass the House again to be sent to the president for his signature. The House has the option to make amendments, but any differences between the House and Senate versions would need to be resolved by a conference committee or by the Senate adopting the new version without any more changes. 
  • Congress set an internal deadline to pass this bill by 4 July. 

The Appropriations Process

• The appropriations process is the yearly spending bill that, in general, addresses the discretionary portion of the federal budget, which includes both defense and non-defense funding (e.g., health and human services, veterans affairs, education, and science agencies). 
• The Appropriations Committees in the House and the Senate are subdivided into 12 Subcommittees with specific jurisdiction over different parts of the discretionary budget. For example, the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee oversees NASA, NSF, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, while the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee's portfolio includes the Department of Energy. 
• The appropriations process ideally follows this timeline: the President’s Budget Request is submitted to Congress by February, members of Congress submit their specific requests to the Appropriations Committees based on their legislative priorities, committee hearings and markups take place in the spring and summer, conference committees come together to reach an agreement between the House and Senate versions of the spending bills, and then the final spending bills are voted on before 1 October, the beginning of the next fiscal year. 
• The House has scheduled markup of the Commerce, Justice, and Science, and Energy and Water bills in their respective subcommittees on Monday, 7 July, and in the full committee on Thursday, 10 July. Markup sessions are when committees determine whether a draft bill should be recommended to the full chamber (House/Senate) for consideration. During markups, committee members can make statements about the bill, offer and vote on amendments, and vote on whether to report the bill to the full chamber (with or without amendment).  
• Consensus is often not reached by 1 October, and a Continuing Resolution (CR) is passed as a stopgap measure to maintain government funding at the previous fiscal year’s levels. We are currently in a full-year CR for FY 2025, meaning the government is operating at levels appropriated from the FY 2024 spending bills. If neither appropriations bills nor a CR is passed by 1 October, the government will shut down. 

For more information, take a look at these resources: 

• Fact sheet from Michigan State University 
• Congressional Research Service FAQs on the Reconciliation Process 
• Congressional Research Service Overview of the Appropriations Process