This report provides an overview of FY2016 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 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), as well as an introduction to important terminology and concepts that carry throughout the report. Next is a series of sections describing major congressional actions on FY2016 appropriations and (for context) a review of the conclusion of the FY2015 appropriations process. This is followed by a high-level summary and analysis of proposed and enacted appropriations for FY2016, compared to FY2015 enacted 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 FY2016 proposed and enacted funding levels, compared to FY2015 enacted funding levels. Finally, an Appendix provides a summary of budget enforcement activities for FY2016. This includes information on the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ( P.L. 114-74 ), the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25 ), and sequestration, as well as efforts related to the budget resolution, subcommittee spending allocations, and the final enacted levels for FY2016. 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 the 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 (provided in the Agriculture appropriations bill), the Indian Health Service (provided in 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 President'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 the Appendix to this report. 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 toward full-year FY2016 LHHS appropriations. The remainder of this section provides additional detail on these and other steps toward full-year LHHS appropriations. It also provides a summary of the supplemental appropriations for HHS that were enacted as part of the Zika Response and Preparedness Appropriations Act, 2016. On September 29, 2016, President Obama signed into law H.R. 5325 ( P.L. 114-223 ), a legislative vehicle that contained the Zika Response and Preparedness Appropriations Act, 2016, in Division B. The bill had been passed by the House and Senate one day earlier, on September 28, 2016. The Zika supplemental contained in this law provided $1.1 billion in emergency appropriations for domestic and international Zika response efforts. Of this, a total of $933 million was provided to the Department of Health and Human Services. These funds were distributed as follows: $394 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for preventing, preparing for, and responding to the Zika virus and related health conditions. Of this amount, $44 million is intended to restore funds to the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement program that had previously been reprogrammed for Zika response activities. $152 million to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Zika-related research, as well as development of vaccines and other medical countermeasures for Zika. $387 million for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund for preventing, preparing for, and responding to the Zika virus and related health conditions. Of this amount, $75 million is to be available for reimbursing the costs of Zika-related health care not covered by private health insurance, $20 million is to be transferred to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant for projects of national significance in Puerto Rico and other territories, $40 million is to expand the delivery of primary health services provided by community health centers, and $6 million is to support the assignment of National Health Service Corps members to Puerto Rico and other territories.