House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) filed a continuing resolution bill on Tuesday evening that would keep the government open through Dec. 11 and funded at this year’s level–a similar level for the defense base budget but a much higher level for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund.

If the bill passes the House and Senate, it would prevent a government shutdown when fiscal year 2015 begins on Oct. 1, since no line-by-line spending bill is in place for the new fiscal year. The continuing resolution would fund the government at the FY ’14 level of $1.012 trillion, with $486.6 billion going to the defense base budget and $85.2 billion for OCO.capitol

Under the CR, no new acquisition programs could start–if the Pentagon did not buy a weapon system in FY ’14, it could not buy it in FY ’15 under the CR. The Pentagon also could not ramp up production rates under the CR, nor could it enter into multiyear procurement deals. If Congress is able to pass an actual defense appropriations bill by Dec. 11, the impact of the short-term CR would be minimal, defense experts have said over the past few weeks. But if Congress cannot reach an agreement by December and extends the short-term CR into the next calendar year, programs could begin to see delays.

On the bright side, Congress had only planned to appropriate $58.6 billion for the OCO in FY ’15. Under the CR, the Pentagon could begin the next fiscal year spending at this year’s rate–45 percent higher than anticipated. Given the laundry list of conflicts and tension around the globe today–battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East, Russian aggression in Ukraine, reports of Chinese fighter jets buzzing American aircraft over international waters, among others–the higher funding level could prove useful.

House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing confirmed that the CR would keep all the FY ’14 policies, so therefore any current operations allowable under law–including operations to combat ISIS–could be continued under the CR.

The House had planned to vote on the CR on Thursday morning, but House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced on the floor Wednesday afternoon that the vote would be postponed until after the White House could brief lawmakers on its plan to combat ISIS. Though the current CR bill and its higher level of OCO funding would be sufficient to address the ISIS threat, measures could be added to the bill to more specifically lay out resources for air strikes or other actions in Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon has remained silent on its FY ’15 needs to address ISIS. “We expect to be able to fund current operations in Iraq with fiscal year 2014 overseas contingency operations appropriations. The secretary and the department have said on numerous occasions that we will continue to evaluate the needs for future OCO funding as the operations evolve.  We do not have an update at this time,” Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban said this week.