The Senate’s CR would keep the government open through Dec. 11, while extending cyber information sharing authorities and the Technology Modernization Fund.
The Senate’s bill to keep the government funded past the midterm elections would extend critical cybersecurity authorities and allow the Technology Modernization Fund to continue investing in agency tech projects.
The Senate Appropriations Committee released its version of the continuing resolution on Sunday. The bill would fund the government at current levels from the start of fiscal 2027 on Oct. 1 through Dec. 11.
House Republicans passed their version of a “clean CR” along party lines last month. The House bill would fund the government through Dec. 4. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said it is “free of poison pills” while extending critical programs.
The Senate’s bill, meanwhile, has more provisions, including bipartisan extensions and other compromises to meet the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold for advancing a bill.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she worked with colleagues in both parties to craft the funding measure.
“This CR is straightforward,” Collins said in a statement. “It continues current government funding levels until Dec. 11 and includes necessary adjustments for programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), vital national security programs, including shipbuilding across multiple vessels, and the Disaster Relief Fund. The CR also avoids any poison pills.”
The Senate bill blocks the Office of Management and Budget from implementing its re-write of federal grant regulations. Collins has called on OMB Director Russell Vought to rescind parts of those proposed regulations.
In a statement, Appropriations Committee Vice Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash) applauded the grants provision and others. She said the Senate CR includes “important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not.”
“It rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” Murray continued. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”
Cyber authorities
The Senate CR, unlike the House bill, would extend two cybersecurity authorities for the duration of the stopgap: the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 and the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015. Both laws are set to expire after Sept. 30.
CISA 2015 provides privacy and liability protections to encourage companies to share data about cyber vulnerabilities and threats with government and each other. Cybersecurity leaders say those protections provide a critical underpinning to facilitate collaboration across government and industry.
The information sharing law briefly lapsed during last year’s shutdown
In a letter to congressional leadership last month, 23 trade associations urged lawmakers to include an extension of CISA 2015 in the CR. They said a lapse now would be “especially ill-timed,” as it would hamper information sharing on artificial intelligence vulnerabilities under the Trump administration’s new “GOLD EAGLE” program.
“The Administration has made clear that GOLD EAGLE depends on the protections CISA 2015 provides, and that the program is fundamentally at risk if CISA 2015 is not extended,” the letter states.
Meanwhile, the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to deploy intrusion detection tools, like the long-running “EINSTEIN” service, across federal agencies.
TMF bolstered
The Senate bill would also extend the Technology Modernization Fund through Dec. 11. The fund and the TMF board are set to expire on Sept. 30. The House-passed bill wouldn’t extend the TMF.
The TMF temporarily expired last fall before Congress extended it as part of the January omnibus appropriations agreement. Any lapse in the authority freezes the TMF and prevents the General Services Administration program from awarding any new projects.
Proponents of the TMF have yet to find a path forward on a long-term reauthorization of the eight-year-old program. OMB has proposed a revised model for the TMF that would allow it to operate like a working capital fund and collect up to $100 million a year in otherwise expired funding.
While the fund’s future continues to be uncertain, TMF Acting Executive Director Jessie Posilkin is encouraging agencies to continue working with the program.
“We just had a call for proposals where we asked agencies what their biggest needs were,” Posilkin said during an “emerging technology showcase” hosted by GSA last week. “We got a great response, and I want to be clear that the TMF is still open for business.”
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