President Obama's FY2015 budget request for Energy and Water Development was released in March 2014. The adjusted request totaled $34.26 billion, compared with a total of $34.13 billion appropriated for FY2014. Final FY2015 Energy and Water Development funding was included in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 ( H.R. 83 ). Energy and Water funding totaled $34.78 billion, $519 million above the request and $653 million above FY2014, including rescissions. The consolidated appropriations measure passed the House December 11, 2014, and the Senate December 13, 2014, and was signed by the President on December 16, 2014 ( P.L. 113-235 ). The House Appropriations Committee approved the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill for FY2015 on June 20, 2014 ( H.R. 4923 , H.Rept. 113-486 ), with a total spending level of $34.20 billion. The House passed the bill on July 10, 2014, by a vote of 253-170. Several floor amendments were approved that did not change the total funding level, including: Three amendments to increase Corps of Engineers construction funding by a total of $6.5 million ( H.Amdt. 972 , H.Amdt. 973 , H.Amdt. 974 ); Increasing the Corps construction account by $57.6 million and reducing nuclear energy programs by $73.3 million ( H.Amdt. 979 ); Amendments to increase the Bureau of Reclamation's Water and Related Resources account by $10 million and renewable energy and energy efficiency by a net total of $2 million ( H.Amdt. 986 , H.Amdt. 995 ); Increasing Department of Energy (DOE) non-defense environmental cleanup by $4 million ( H.Amdt. 999 ); and Increasing DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E) by $20 million ( H.Amdt. 1003 ). The Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on Energy and Water Development approved its version of the FY2015 bill on June 17, 2014, with a total of $34.21 billion (including budget scorekeeping adjustments). The subcommittee's draft bill and report were released by the Appropriations Committee on July 24, 2014. The subcommittee would increase funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to $5.13 billion and for the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation to $1.23 billion. Funding for the Department of Energy would total $28.36 billion, including $205.9 million in rescissions. Full committee markup scheduled for June 19, 2014, was postponed because of Administration objections to a planned amendment to block proposed Environmental Protection Agency carbon dioxide regulations, according to media reports. No further action on the Senate draft bill was taken. Table 1 indicates the status of the FY2015 funding legislation. The Energy and Water Development bill includes funding for civil works projects of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), the Department of the Interior's Central Utah Project (CUP) and Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), the Department of Energy (DOE), and a number of independent agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). FY2015 discretionary appropriations were considered in the context of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA, P.L. 112-25 ), which established discretionary spending limits for FY2012-FY2021, enforced by an automatic spending reduction process of sequestration. In December 2013 Congress passed H.J.Res. 59 ( P.L. 113-67 ), which contained the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA), establishing less stringent spending caps for FY2014 and FY2015 than the BCA. For details, see CRS Report R43411, The Budget Control Act of 2011: Legislative Changes to the Law and Their Budgetary Effects , coordinated by [author name scrubbed]. The Obama Administration added to its FY2015 budget a new government‐wide proposal referred to as the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative. It was a $56 billion fund that would have been divided equally between defense and nondefense expenditures. The cost of the initiative would have been offset largely with targeted spending cuts and closed tax loopholes. The FY2015 House Appropriations Committee report did not mention the Administration initiative, nor did the draft report released by the Senate Appropriations Committee, and it was not included in the final FY2015 consolidated bill. According to the Administration, the initiative would have provided an additional $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy, including: $355 million for "strengthening national resilience to climate change," including grants to states and increased weatherization programs, as well as distributed energy generation; $200 million for the proposed "Race to the Top" grants to states to implement energy savings; $484 million for other energy initiatives; and $600 million for nuclear weapons programs, including Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities and Site Stewardship, and nuclear nonproliferation research and development (R&D). Funding proposed through the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative is not included in the FY2015 funding levels in the tables that follow. Table 2 includes budget totals for energy and water development appropriations enacted for FY2008 to FY2015. Table 3 lists totals for each of the bill's four titles. Tables 4 through 16 provide budget details for Title I (Corps of Engineers), Title II (Department of the Interior), Title III (Department of Energy), and Title IV (independent agencies) for FY2013-FY2015. Accompanying these tables is a discussion of the key issues involved in the major programs in the four titles. The Energy and Water Development bill provides funding for the civil program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), an agency in the Department of Defense with both military and civilian responsibilities. Under its civil works program, the Corps plans, builds, operates, and maintains a wide range of water resources facilities. The Corps attracts congressional attention because its projects can have significant local and regional economic benefits and environmental effects, in addition to their water resource development purposes. Corps appropriations are generally authorized in water resources development acts. Most recently, Congress enacted a new water resources development act in June of 2014, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA, P.L. 113-121 ). This bill authorized new Corps projects and studies and altered numerous Corps policies and procedures. In most years, the President's budget request for the Corps is below the agency's enacted appropriation. For FY2015, Congress appropriated $5.454 billion for the Corps in P.L. 113-235 . The President's FY2015 budget request for the Corps was $4.561 billion. The House approved $5.557 billion for the Corps, and the Senate appropriations subcommittee recommended $5.162 billion. For FY2014, Congress had provided $5.468 billion in the agency's annual civil works appropriations in P.L. 113-76 . For more on the evolution of Corps civil works funding in recent years, see CRS In Focus IF00012, Army Corps Civil Works Funding: A Primer (In Focus) , by [author name scrubbed]. Additionally, in recent years riverine and coastal flooding resulted in the agency receiving supplemental funds. For more on the recent history of Corps civil works supplemental appropriations, see CRS Report R42841, Army Corps Supplemental Appropriations: Recent History, Trends, and Policy Issues , by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed]. Corps funding is part of the debate over congressionally directed spending, or "earmarks." Unlike highways and municipal water infrastructure programs, federal funds for the Corps are not distributed to states or projects based on a formula or delivered via competitive grants. Generally about 85% of the appropriations for Corps civil works activities are directed to specific projects. In addition to specific projects identified for funding in the President's budget, for decades Congress annually identified during the discretionary appropriations process many additional Corps projects to receive funding. In the 112 th Congress, site-specific project line items added by Congress (i.e., earmarks) became subject to House and Senate earmark moratorium policies. As a result, Congress generally has not added funding at the project level since FY2010. In lieu of the traditional project-based increases, Congress has included "additional funding" for select categories of Corps projects (e.g., "ongoing navigation work"), and provided direction and limitations on the use of these funds. Congress continued this practice in FY2015, providing $974 million in "additional funding" for select categories of Corps projects in the Investigations, Construction, O&M, and MR&T accounts. This was consistent with the approach of the House- and Senate-passed bills for FY2015 appropriations. The large number of authorized Corps studies and projects that have not received appropriations to date, or that are authorized and have received funding but are incomplete, is often referred to as the "backlog" of authorized projects. Estimates of the construction backlog range from $20 billion to more than $80 billion, depending on which projects are included (e.g., those that meet Administration budget criteria, those that have received funding in recent appropriations, those that have never received appropriations). The backlog raises policy questions, such as which activities to fund among authorized activities. Recent budget requests by the Administration have included few new studies and construction starts, and enacted appropriations for FY2011, FY2012, and FY2013 barred any funding for new projects (defined as projects or studies that have not received appropriations previously). For FY2014, P.L. 113-76 allowed up to nine new study starts and four new construction starts.