The Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill includes funding for the Department of the Treasury (Title I),¹ the Executive Office of the President (Title II), the judiciary (Title III),² the District of Columbia (Title IV), and more than two dozen independent agencies (Title V). The bill typically funds mandatory retirement accounts in Title VI, which also contains additional general provisions applying to the funding provided to agencies through the FSGG bill. Title VII typically contains general provisions that apply government-wide.

The House and Senate FSGG bills fund the same agencies, with one exception. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is funded through the Agriculture appropriations bill in the House and the FSGG bill in the Senate. Where the CFTC is funded upon enactment depends on which chamber originated the law, which typically alternates annually. Thus, the enacted amounts for the CFTC are typically in the Agriculture appropriations bill one year and the FSGG appropriations bill the following year.

This structure has existed in its current form since the 2007 reorganization of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations. Although financial services are a major focus of the FSGG appropriations bill, the bill does not include funding for many financial regulatory agencies, which are instead funded outside of the appropriations process. However, it is not uncommon for legislative provisions addressing various financial regulatory issues to be included in titles at the end of the bill.

Administration and Congressional Action

President Trump submitted his FY2021 budget request on February 10, 2020. The requested amount for agencies funded through the FSGG appropriations bill totaled approximately $51.1 billion, including $304 million for the CFTC.³

The House Committee on Appropriations reported a Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2021 (H.R. 7668)⁴ on July 17, 2020.⁵ Approximate total FY2021 funding in the reported bill was $114.7 billion. Of this amount, $67 billion was emergency spending to address the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic contained in Title X, which would have provided $61 billion for expansion of internet broadband through Federal Communications Commission (FCC) grants and $6 billion for federal buildings through the General Services Administration (GSA). Another $304 million for the CFTC was included in the Agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 7610).⁶ The combined total of $115 billion was $63.9 billion more than the President's FY2021 request due to the emergency funding. Comparing nonemergency funding, the approximate combined total for FSGG funding in the House bills, $48 billion, was $3.1 billion less than the President's request.

H.R. 7668 was included as Division D of H.R. 7617 when that bill was considered on the House floor. H.R. 7617 was amended numerous times, shifting funding among FSGG agencies but not changing the FSGG totals.⁷ H.R. 7617 passed the House on July 31, 2020.

The Senate Appropriations Committee held one subcommittee hearing on the FY2021 budget request for an FSGG agency, the FCC, but did not act on an FSGG appropriations bill at either the subcommittee or the full committee level. On November 10, then-Chairman Richard Shelby released a draft bill and a draft explanatory statement in a press release indicating, "By and large, these bills are the product of bipartisan cooperation among members of the committee."⁸ Then-committee Vice Chair Patrick Leahy released a statement indicating "disappointment" at the absences of opportunities to amend the bills and indicating areas wherein he would seek "improvements" in the drafts with further negotiations.⁹

Continuing Resolutions

With the end of FY2020 approaching and no full-year appropriations measure enacted to fund the FSGG agencies (or the rest of the government), the House passed H.R. 8337, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act, on September 22, 2020, and the Senate followed on September 30, 2020. The President signed the bill, now P.L. 116-159, on October 1, 2020. This continuing resolution provided funding through December 11, 2020, based on the FY2020 levels with a certain number of changes (known generally as anomalies).¹⁰ The anomalies for the FSGG agencies are contained in Division A, Sections 129-139, and primarily provide continuing funding for the District of Columbia, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and various agencies involved in the presidential election and transition.¹¹ Section 131 contained $13 million in additional FY2021 funding for "Emergency Planning and Security Costs in the District of Columbia."

Four additional continuing resolutions (P.L. 116-215, P.L. 116-225, P.L. 116-226, and P.L. 116-246) were enacted, ultimately providing for appropriations through December 28, 2020, based largely on FY2020 levels.

Full-Year FY2021 Appropriations

Full-year FY2021 FSGG appropriations were enacted on December 27, 2020, as Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260/H.R. 133). Division E was included in the measure during House consideration along with three other divisions on a vote of 327-85 on December 21, 2021.¹² The Senate completed passage of H.R. 133 including the complete appropriations for FY2021 on December 21, 2021, following the House passage. P.L. 116-260 did not include any of the emergency funding included in the initial House-passed H.R. 7617 but did include $50 million for the Records Center Revolving Fund in the National Archives and Records Administration. FSGG funding in P.L. 116-260 totaled approximately $47.5 billion, $3.6 billion under the President's request.

Table 1 below reflects the status of FY2021 FSGG appropriations measures at key points in the appropriations process. Table 2 lists, largely by title, the amounts requested by the President and included in the various FSGG bills, and Table 3 details the amounts for the independent agencies. Specific columns in Table 2 and Table 3 are FSGG agencies' enacted amounts for FY2020, the President's FY2021 request, the FY2021 amounts from H.R. 7617 as it passed the House, the Senate Committee majority draft, and the combined enacted amounts from P.L. 116-260 and P.L. 116-159.

FSGG and Emergency Spending

FSGG appropriations are also frequently provided through supplemental appropriations bills in addition to regular appropriations. This is particularly the case for the SBA, which plays a significant role in recovery following disasters such as hurricanes. For example, in FY2020, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed four different supplemental appropriations bills (P.L. 116-123, P.L. 116-127, P.L. 116-136, and P.L. 116-139) containing nearly $64 billion in emergency discretionary FSGG appropriations to address the pandemic, with $63.7 billion of this total going to the SBA.¹³

As mentioned above, the House-passed FY2021 bill (H.R. 7617) also included over $67 billion in "emergency infrastructure investments to respond to the economic collapse related to the coronavirus"¹⁴ contained in Title X. The bill would have provided $61 billion for expansion of internet broadband through FCC grants and $6 billion for federal buildings through the GSA. As enacted, P.L. 116-260 provided $50 million in emergency appropriations for the National Archives and Records Administration.

In the 117^th Congress, Title IV of H.R. 3237 as passed by the House would have provided emergency discretionary FSGG funding for the judiciary, the District of Columbia, and the GSA, but this funding was not included in the enacted version (P.L. 117-31).

Financial Regulatory Agencies and FSGG Appropriations

Although financial services are a focus of the FSGG bill, the bill does not actually include funding for the regulation of much of the financial services industry.¹⁵ Financial regulatory agencies can be broadly subdivided into groups that regulate depositories (primarily banks), insurance, securities, and housing finance. Federal regulation of the banking industry is divided among the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (generally known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, which also has authorities over certain nonbank financial institutions).¹⁶ In addition, credit unions, another type of depository that operate similarly to many banks in most ways, are regulated by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).¹⁷ None of these agencies receives its primary funding through the appropriations process, with only the FDIC inspector general and a small program operated by the NCUA currently funded in the FSGG bill.

Insurance is generally regulated at the state level, with some oversight at the holding company level by the Federal Reserve. There is a relatively small Federal Insurance Office (FIO) inside the Treasury, which is funded through the Departmental Offices account, but the FIO has no regulatory authority.¹⁸

Federal securities regulation is divided between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the CFTC, both of which are funded through appropriations.¹⁹ The CFTC funding is a relatively straightforward appropriation from the general fund, whereas the SEC funding is provided by the FSGG bill but then offset through fees collected by the SEC.

Housing finance, particularly the two large government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency,²⁰ which is funded primarily through assessments on regulated entities and receives no funding through the FSGG bill.

Although funding for many financial regulatory agencies may not be provided by the FSGG bill, legislative provisions affecting financial regulation in general and some of these agencies specifically have often been included in FSGG bills.

President Trump's FY2021 budget proposed that funding for the CFPB be restructured. In FY2021, the CFPB's funding through the Federal Reserve would be reduced, and then, going forward from FY2022, funding would be provided by congressional appropriation from the general fund.²¹ This proposed change was explicitly rejected in the House committee report and was not included in House legislation nor in the enacted P.L. 116-260.²²

Committee Structure and Scope

The House and Senate Committees on Appropriations reorganized their subcommittee structures in early 2007. Each chamber created a new Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. In the House, the jurisdiction of the FSGG Subcommittee is composed primarily of agencies that had been under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies, commonly referred to as TTHUD.²³ In addition, the House FSGG Subcommittee was assigned four independent agencies that had been under the jurisdiction of the Science, State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies Subcommittee: the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the SEC, and the SBA.

In the Senate, the jurisdiction of the FSGG Subcommittee is a combination of agencies from the jurisdiction of three previously existing subcommittees. Most of the agencies that had been under the jurisdiction of the Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee were assigned to the FSGG Subcommittee.²⁴ In addition, the District of Columbia, which had its own subcommittee in the 109^th Congress, was placed under the purview of the FSGG Subcommittee, as were four independent agencies that had been under the jurisdiction of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee: the FCC, FTC, SEC, and SBA. As a result of this reorganization, the House and Senate FSGG Subcommittees have nearly identical jurisdictions, except the CFTC is under the jurisdiction of the FSGG Subcommittee in the Senate and the Agriculture Subcommittee in the House.