with a friday midnight deadline fast approaching, congress is set to take up a continuing resolution, or cr, extending funding to april 28th. nancy oganovich, why is congress facing yet another government shutdown deadline? >> well, the house and senate just couldn't seem to get those 12 appropriations bills done in a timely way this year. they got one done before the fiscal year started october 1, which is the first time in years

they got one done before the start of the fiscal year. but the others will remain on hold because they had them mostly written, they say, but in the end, the transition team of incoming president donald trump wanted them not to proceed with the omnibus, but they wanted to put together in december to close out fiscal year '17. and leave some things open until next year when the new administration can have more of a say in setting spending priorities. >> let's talk about some of the key details in the bill and some of the riders. how does the bill fund government agencies and departments considering that they are still under budget caps previously agreed to? >> well, they already have that discretionary cap number from the two-year bipartisan budget deal which is $1.707 trillion. that's part of the deal that former speaker john boehner made

with the white house to ensure there wouldn't be a government shutdown. that they would have a couple of years of certainty in terms of what the discretionary spending level would be. so they're using that as a guide, and that's what they used for the first cr that they wrote and passed in september. and this was a continuation building on that first cr. when all is said and done, this plan calls for the government to be funded by stop gaps for the first seven months of the fiscal year. and that's causing some concern with appropriators who compare the crs to autopilot. and they really don't believe that the department of defense in particular should be operating under crs, especially when they have so many operations going on overseas. >> let's talk about flint, michigan. this provides funding for the flint, michigan, water system. how much is actually included in the bill, and why is it in the

cr? >> well, there 24 things going obut this cr is supposed to be carrying $170 million in appropriations to help flint deal with its drinking water crisis. but there's another bill moving through the congress this week also. the water resources development reauthorization. and that water bill has the authorization for the flint money. so republican leaders want to see both of these things passed. the water resources bill creates the authority for the spending, but the cr provide the real money and for flint to be insured of the money, they need both bills to be passed and signed into law. >> there's also a provision regarding a waiver process for president-elect donald trump's pick for defense secretary. retired general james mattis. explain that issue. >> current law says a member of the military cannot become the secretary of defense, which is a

civilian position and that a person would have to be out of the military for seven years before they could be considered for that post. now in the cr, lawmakers inserted legislative language in the spending bill to provide a waiver to that seven-year real. and democrats today said they don't like that a cr to fund the government is being used to change the law. but this kind of change should be debated in congress and given care f careful consideration, but some of them said they still don't really object to him getting that waiver and that sort of signals that will not be a big, you know, stumbling block for the cr. >> there's funding for security for the president-elect. explain that fund, particularly, the differences in the bill and what new york city has requested. >> it's much less than new york city has requested.

the ranking member of the appropriations committee says this is not going to help new york city nearly as much as it needs to address what's going on in new york right now. and the kind of extra law enforcement resources that are being used. and yet that in itself doesn't seem to be a stumbling block either. there are other things. for example, joe manchin, the senator from west virginia is very angry that only a minor extension of minors benefits is in the cr. he'd been talking to republicans about extending protections to make sure retired miners and their widows would receive their health benefits for a number of years. in this cr, health benefits only would be extended for the duration of the cr so today he was threatening to withhold consent until he could negotiate

a better deal. and he was talking about perhaps offering an extension through next week, maybe next monday, tuesday, in order to give them more time to negotiate these and other things. >> there are other provisions you've been taking a closer look at? >> it's very interesting. democrats say they've really been frozen out of the negotiations on the cr even though they have been negotiating the other spending bills together all year long. and the one thing that the white house has gotten into this cr, maybe not at the levels they wanted but they've gotten extra money for the defense department and the state department to conduct overseas operations in iraq and afghanistan. it's not the entire amount that president obama requested a few weeks ago, but it comes close. and another thing is disaster assistance. that's something that the white house was pushing for louisiana

and other states, and in the end it looks as though this cr will carry about $4 billion in extra funding that the states hurt by flooding last august, including louisiana and other states that were hurt during hurricane matthew in the early fall can share. it's not enough, lawmakers say, but it's another good installment on what they need. >> will the white house support the continuing resolution? >> we don't know yet. we haven't seen a statement of administration on that. they are evaluating it. senate democrats are also evaluating it. they say they'll have a special caucus because there are a number of democrats who are very unhappy with the provisions. and so maybe we won't know until tomorrow what definitively the democrats will do. >> nancy oganovich writes about

congressional appropriations. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, oklahoma republican senator james lankford will join us to discuss a report highlighting unnecessary or excessive federal spending. and then california democratic congressman mark desonier to examine president-elect's donald trump financial interests. and house democrats agenda in the next congress. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. join the discussion. all day saturday, american history tv is featuring programs about this week's 75th anniversary of the japanese attacks on pearl harbor beginning at 8:00 a.m. eastern. national archives christopher

carter reads from u.s. navy deck logs describing events on ships under attack. followed by the burial of one of the casualties aboard the "uss oklahoma." rs he mains were recently identified. and then tour pearl harbor attack sites with national park service site historian daniel martinez. president reagan's december 8th, 1941 speech to congress asking for a declaration of war followed by the 75th anniversary ceremony at pearl harbor co-hosted by the national park service and u.s. navy. and from 11:00 to 1:00 p.m., we're taking your calls and tweets live. ian toll, author of "pacific cruc well -- war at sea in the pacific" discussing the pacific war from the attack on pearl harbor through the u.s. victory over the japanese at the battle

of midway. and we're live with paul traves, author of "eyewitness to infamy." giving a behind the scenes account of the japanese attack from his more than 200 interviews with pearl harbor veterans. and then at 1:00, the pearl harbor 75th anniversary ceremony from the world war ii memorial in washington, d.c., with keynote marks by senator john mccain. saturday on c-span3 on american history tv. coming up on c-span3, a hearing on improper bonus payments made to california national guard members. then prime minister's question time in the british house much commons. after that, the bipartisan policy center with a panel on the 2017 homeland security outlook. the foreign relations committee on the iranian terror threat. in 2010, a federal investigation discovered thousands of bonuses and student loan payments w