This report provides an overview of FY2018 appropriations actions for accounts traditionally funded in the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS). This bill provides discretionary and mandatory appropriations to three federal departments: the Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Education (ED). In addition, the bill provides annual appropriations for more than a dozen related agencies, including the Social Security Administration (SSA). Discretionary funds represent less than one-quarter of the total funds appropriated in the LHHS bill. Nevertheless, the LHHS bill is typically the largest single source of discretionary funds for domestic non-defense federal programs among the various appropriations bills (the Department of Defense bill is the largest source of discretionary funds among all federal programs). The bulk of this report is focused on discretionary appropriations because these funds receive the most attention during the appropriations process. The LHHS bill typically is one of the more controversial of the regular appropriations bills because of the size of its funding total and the scope of its programs, as well as various related social policy issues addressed in the bill, such as restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion and for research on human embryos and stem cells. Congressional clients may consult the LHHS experts list in CRS Report R42638, Appropriations: CRS Experts , for information on which analysts to contact at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) with questions on specific agencies and programs funded in the LHHS bill. This report is divided into several sections. The opening section provides an explanation of the scope of the LHHS bill (and hence, the scope of this report) and an introduction to important terminology and concepts that carry throughout the report. Next is a series of sections describing major congressional actions on FY2018 appropriations and (for context) a review of the conclusion of the FY2017 appropriations process. This is followed by a high-level summary and analysis of enacted and proposed appropriations for FY2018, compared to FY2017 funding levels. The body of the report concludes with overview sections for each of the major titles of the bill: DOL, HHS, ED, and Related Agencies. These sections provide selected highlights from FY2018 enacted and proposed funding levels compared to FY2017. (Note that the distribution of funds is sometimes illustrated by figures, which in all cases are based on the FY2018 enacted version of the LHHS bill. ) Finally, Appendix A provides a summary of budget enforcement activities for FY2018. This includes information on the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25 ) and sequestration, as well as action associated with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018; P.L. 115-123 ), the FY2018 budget resolution, subcommittee spending allocations, and current-year spending levels. This is followed by Appendix B , which provides an overview of the LHHS-related floor amendments that were offered in the House during its consideration of H.R. 3354 , an omnibus appropriations measure that was ultimately not taken up by the Senate. In general, this report is focused strictly on appropriations to agencies and accounts that are subject to the jurisdiction of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittees of the House and Senate appropriations committees (i.e., accounts traditionally funded via the LHHS bill). Department "totals" provided in this report do not include funding for accounts or agencies that are traditionally funded by appropriations bills under the jurisdiction of other subcommittees. The LHHS bill provides appropriations for the following federal departments and agencies: the Department of Labor; most agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services, except for the Food and Drug Administration (funded through the Agriculture appropriations bill), the Indian Health Service (funded through the Interior-Environment appropriations bill), and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (also funded through the Interior-Environment appropriations bill); the Department of Education; and more than a dozen related agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Railroad Retirement Board. Note also that funding totals displayed in this report do not reflect amounts provided outside of the annual appropriations process. Certain direct spending programs, such as Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and parts of Medicare, receive funding directly from their authorizing statutes; such funds are not reflected in the totals provided in this report because they are not provided through the annual appropriations process (see related discussion in the " Important Budget Concepts " section). The LHHS bill includes both discretionary and mandatory budget authority. While all discretionary spending is subject to the annual appropriations process, only a portion of mandatory spending is provided in appropriations measures. Mandatory programs funded through the annual appropriations process are commonly referred to as appropriated entitlements . In general, appropriators have little control over the amounts provided for appropriated entitlements; rather, the authorizing statute controls the program parameters (e.g., eligibility rules, benefit levels) that entitle certain recipients to payments. If Congress does not appropriate the money necessary to meet these commitments, entitled recipients (e.g., individuals, states, or other entities) may have legal recourse. Most mandatory spending is not provided through the annual appropriations process, but rather through budget authority provided by the program's authorizing statute (e.g., Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). The funding amounts in this report do not include budget authority provided outside of the appropriations process. Instead, the amounts reflect only those funds, discretionary and mandatory, that are provided through appropriations acts. Note that, as displayed in this report, mandatory amounts for the Trump Administration's budget submission reflect current-law (or current services) estimates; they generally do not include the President's proposed changes to a mandatory spending program's authorizing statute that might affect total spending. (In general, such proposals are excluded from this report, as they typically would be enacted in authorizing legislation.) Note also that the report focuses most closely on discretionary funding. This is because discretionary funding receives the bulk of attention during the appropriations process. (As noted earlier, although the LHHS bill includes more mandatory funding than discretionary funding, the appropriators generally have less flexibility in adjusting mandatory funding levels than discretionary funding levels.) Mandatory and discretionary spending is subject to budget enforcement processes that include sequestration. In general, sequestration involves largely across-the-board reductions that are made to certain categories of discretionary or mandatory spending. However, the conditions that trigger sequestration, and how it is carried out, differ for each type of spending. This is discussed further in Appendix A . Budget authority is the amount of money a federal agency is legally authorized to commit or spend. Appropriations bills may include budget authority that becomes available in the current fiscal year, in future fiscal years, or some combination. Amounts that become available in future fiscal years are typically referred to as advance appropriations . Unless otherwise specified, appropriations levels displayed in this report refer to the total amount of budget authority provided in an appropriations bill (i.e., "total in the bill"), regardless of the year in which the funding becomes available. In some cases, the report breaks out "current-year" appropriations (i.e., the amount of budget authority available for obligation in a given fiscal year , regardless of the year in which it was first appropriated). As the annual appropriations process unfolds, the amount of current-year budget authority is measured against 302(b) allocation ceilings (budget enforcement caps for appropriations subcommittees that traditionally emerge following the budget resolution process). The process of measuring appropriations against these spending ceilings takes into account scorekeeping adjustments , which are made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to reflect conventions and special instructions of Congress. Unless otherwise specified, appropriations levels displayed in this report do not reflect additional scorekeeping adjustments. Table 1 provides a timeline of major legislative actions, and the remainder of this section provides additional detail on these and other steps toward full-year FY2018 LHHS appropriations. On May 8, 2018, the Trump Administration submitted to Congress a proposal for rescissions of budget authority totaling $15.8 billion. The proposal was submitted in accordance with Section 1012 of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 683). In the proposal were a number of LHHS-related rescissions of both mandatory and discretionary funding for accounts at DOL, HHS, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the Railroad Retirement Board. After it was introduced as H.R. 3 , the House considered the measure and passed it by a vote of 210-206, on June 7, 2018. In the Senate, the measure was referred to the Senate Appropriations and Budget Committees. On June 20, 2018, a motion to discharge those committees from consideration of the measure was made in the Senate, but it was rejected by a vote of 48-50. No further action on this measure has occurred as of the date of this report. On March 23, 2018, President Trump signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, FY2018 ( H.R. 1625 , P.L. 115-141). The bill was agreed to in the House on March 22 and in the Senate on March 23. The bill provided regular, full-year appropriations for all 12 annual appropriations acts, including LHHS (Division H).