Obama Signs Spending Bill

Last week, President Barack Obama signed into law a $1.013 trillion spending bill that will fund nearly all of government through September 2015. The legislation contains funding for all federal departments except the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded only through February 2015. The new law includes more than $5 billion in emergency funds for Ebola and a 2.4% increase in funding over fiscal 2014 for the National Science Foundation. The legislation was pushed through by Congress to avoid a government shutdown. Last year’s failure to pass such a bill caused a weeks-long shutdown that delayed some federal research programs and brought others to a halt.