Congress uses an annual appropriations process to fund discretionary spending, which supports the projects and activities of most federal government agencies. This process anticipates the enactment of 12 regular appropriations bills each fiscal year. If regular appropriations are not enacted prior to the start of the fiscal year (October 1), continuing appropriations may be used to provide temporary funding until the annual appropriations process can be concluded. Continuing appropriations acts are often referred to as "continuing resolutions" or "CRs," because they are typically enacted in the form of a joint resolution. CRs may be enacted for a period of days, weeks, or months. If any of the 12 regular appropriations bills are not enacted by the time the first CR for a fiscal year expires, further extensions of that CR might be enacted until all regular appropriations bills have been completed or the fiscal year ends. None of the FY2017 regular appropriations bills was enacted prior to the enactment of the first CR for FY2017 ( H.R. 5325 ). As enacted, Division C of that measure provides continuing appropriations for projects and activities covered by 11 of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the period covering the beginning of the fiscal year, October 1, 2016, through December 9, 2016. It also provided appropriations covering the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act for all of FY2017 (Division A), as well as emergency funds to combat the Zika virus and provide relief for flood victims in Louisiana and other affected states (Division B). H.R. 5325 was passed by the Senate and House on September 28, 2016, and signed into law by the President on September 29 ( P.L. 114-223 ). In December 2016, the House and Senate passed a measure providing further continuing appropriations for FY2017 ( H.R. 2028 ) for projects and activities covered by the 11 regular appropriations that were covered by the previous CR, P.L. 114-223 , but extending the period of availability through April 28, 2017 (Division A) and adding additional provisions to be added to the text of P.L. 114-223 following Section 145 of Division C. In addition, funding was provided for Overseas Contingency Operations for the entire fiscal year (Division B, entitled the Security Assistance Act, 2017). The purpose of this report is to provide an analysis of the additional provisions in Division A concerning continuing appropriations added to those from Division C of P.L. 114-223 (Sections 145-201), including the provision establishing an expedited procedure for Senate consideration of a waiver concerning the nomination of James N. Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. The first two sections summarize the overall funding provided ("Coverage, Duration, and Rate") and budget enforcement issues associated with the statutory discretionary spending limits ("The CR and the Statutory Discretionary Spending Limits"). The third section of this report provides short summaries of the provisions in this CR that are agency-, account-, or program-specific. These summaries are organized by appropriations act title. In some instances, additional information about those appropriations and how they operate under a CR is provided. For general information on the content of CRs and historical data on CRs enacted between FY1977 and FY2016, see CRS Report R42647, Continuing Resolutions: Overview of Components and Recent Practices , by James V. Saturno and Jessica Tollestrup. This section of the report discusses the three components of a CR that generally establish the purpose, duration, and amount of funds provided by the act: A CR's "coverage" relates to the purposes for which funds are provided. The projects and activities funded by a CR are typically specified with reference to regular (and, occasionally, supplemental) appropriations acts from the previous fiscal year. When a CR refers to one of those appropriations acts and provides funds for the projects and activities included in such an act, the CR is often referred to as "covering" that act. The "duration" of a CR refers to the period of time for which budget authority is provided for covered activities. CRs usually fund projects and activities using a "rate for operations" or "funding rate" to provide budget authority at a restricted level but do not prescribe a specified dollar amount. The funding rate for a project or activity is based on the total amount of budget authority that would be available annually for that project or activity under the referenced appropriations acts and is pro-rated based on the fraction of a year for which the CR is in effect. Division A provides further continuing budget authority for projects and activities funded in the first continuing appropriations measure for FY2017. These are specified in P.L. 114-223 as the projects and activities funded in FY2016 by that fiscal year's regular appropriations acts for 11 of the 12 regular annual appropriations bills—Divisions A-L (except for Division J covering the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act) of the FY2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act ( P.L. 114-113 ), with some exceptions. Statutory limits on discretionary spending are in effect for FY2017, as established by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25 ) and modified most recently by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ( P.L. 114-74 ). The CR includes both budget authority that is subject to those limits and also budget authority that is effectively exempt from those limits. Budget authority that is effectively exempt includes that designated or otherwise provided as "Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism" (OCO/GWOT), "continuing disability reviews and redeterminations," "health care fraud and abuse control," "disaster relief," and "emergency requirements." Budget authority is provided in this CR under the same terms and conditions as the referenced FY2016 appropriations acts. Effectively, this requirement extends many of the provisions in the FY2016 acts that stipulated or limited agency authorities during FY2016. In addition, in general none of the funds may be used to initiate or resume an activity for which budget authority was not available in FY2016. A goal of these and similar provisions in other CRs, as well as many of the other provisions discussed in the sections below, is to protect Congress's constitutional authority to provide annual funding in the manner it chooses. Section 101 provides that funding in the CR is effective through April 28, 2017—a period extending funding for FY2017 for an additional 20 weeks. The CR provides that, in general, budget authority for some or all projects and activities could be superseded by the enactment of the applicable regular appropriations act or another CR prior to April 28. For projects and activities funded in the CR that a subsequent appropriations act does not fund, budget authority would immediately cease upon such enactment, even if prior to April 28. The CR provides budget authority for projects and activities funded in the 11 FY2016 appropriations acts covered by the CR at a rate based on the amount of funding provided in those acts for the duration of the CR (through April 28). The rate is based on the actual amounts made available in FY2016 and so would be the net of all funding provisions, including those that had the effect of reducing FY2016 budget authority. For entitlement and other mandatory spending provided in regular appropriations acts, funding is provided at the rate sufficient to maintain program levels under current law as provided in Section 111 of P.L. 114-223 . Most projects and activities funded in the CR are subject to an across-the-board decrease that would have the effect of reducing the rate by 0.1901% below the level of FY2016 funding. Because this decrease did not apply to appropriations designated or otherwise provided as OCO/GWOT, continuing disability reviews and redeterminations, health care fraud and abuse control, disaster relief, and emergency requirements under Section 111 of P.L. 114-223 , they would continue to be unaffected. This decrease does apply, however, to advance appropriations enacted in previous fiscal years that first became available in FY2017. Appropriations for FY2017 are subject to statutory discretionary spending limits on categories of spending designated as "defense" and "nondefense" spending pursuant to the BCA. The defense category includes all discretionary spending under budget function 050 (defense); the nondefense category includes discretionary spending in the other budget functions. If discretionary spending is enacted in excess of a statutory limit in either category, the BCA requires the level of spending to be brought into conformance through "sequestration," which involves primarily across-the-board cuts to non-exempt spending in the category of the limit that was breached (i.e., defense or nondefense). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provides a preview report at the beginning of the calendar year calculating any adjustments to the existing statutory spending limits. For FY2017, the adjusted discretionary spending caps are $551.068 billion for defense and $518.531 billion for nondefense. After the end of the congressional session, OMB evaluates discretionary spending relative to the spending limits and determines whether sequestration is necessary. Under the BCA, the first such evaluation (and any necessary enforcement) is scheduled to occur within 15 calendar days after Congress adjourns sine die , and for any discretionary spending that becomes law after the session ends, the OMB evaluation and any enforcement of the limits would occur 15 days after enactment. As described below, however, Section 184 of P.L. 114-254 provides an adjusted schedule and process for FY2017. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the budgetary effects of interim CRs on an "annualized" basis, meaning that the effects are measured as if the CR were providing budget authority for the remainder of the fiscal year. According to CBO, when the funding provided in Division A of P.L.