Senate Appropriations Committee Releases Guidance for Earmarks

WIH

President Biden is scheduled to release the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget on March 9. The release of the annual budget is the official start to budget and appropriations process. As part of this process, the Senate Appropriations Committee has already released its general guidance for Fiscal Year 2024 Congressionally Directed Spending — commonly known as earmarks — last week. According to the Senate Appropriations Committee press release, the Committee will begin accepting spending requests from Senators at the end of March. So, universities and other interested entities will have time to submit their earmark requests to their Senators.

Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) released additional guidance regarding each subcommittee’s eligibility criteria for requests. For the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education subcommittee, examples listed for types of projects improving postsecondary education include “to hire and train faculty, establish and improve degree programs, improve teacher preparation programs, develop and improve curricula, upgrade technology, equipment, and telecommunications, provide student support, and implement university partnerships with school districts.”

Deadlines for earmark requests for all 12 spending bills:

Agriculture — March 31
Commerce-Justice-Science — April 5
Defense (not accepting earmarks) — April 14
Energy-Water — March 30
Financial Services — March 31
Homeland Security — April 11
Interior-Environment — April 4
Labor-HHS-Education —April 13
Legislative Branch (not accepting earmarks) —March 30
Military Construction-VA — April 7
State-Foreign Operations (not accepting earmarks) —April 12
Transportation-HUD —April 6