The Senate on Friday passed its first tight of the government funding bills for the financial year 2026 ahead of its upcoming August holiday, but the Congress is ready for a potentially messy fight to stop a shutdown when returning in September.
The Chamber approved three bills that provide more than $ 180 billion in discretionary funds for the Veterans Affairs (VAs) and Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), military construction, legislative branch operations and rural development departments.
Bills passed in two parts: 87-9 votes for military construction, VA, agriculture and FDA funding; And 81-15 votes for legislative branch funding.
Votes discontinue the days of uncertainty whether the Senate is joining the House on a month’s leave, any of which will be passed by any of the 12 annual funding bills.
Sen John Buzmann (R-Arch.), Who is head of the sub-committee that prepares the VA Funding Bill throughout the year, said on Friday that he sees the first batch of the bill as a “Test run”.
“Ever since we have made our appropriation bills, it is too long. Many people are just [forgot] Processes, “he told The Hill, given that the senators of the previous Congress session” did not really bill. ,
Appropriatives say that for the first time after vote 2018, Senate has passed the funding law before August holiday.
“This is really just a matter of law, and the more we do it, the easier it would be that we will go back,” Buzmann said.
In the last week, the Senator passed through several recurrents of its first funding package of the year, as the leaders of both sides worked through frustrations in their ranks on the levels and tasks proposed by the Trump administration that provoked Democrats.
On Friday, more than half of the approved funding is included in the annual VA and the Military Construction Bill, which calls above $ 153 billion in discretionary funding for FY 2026. This includes about 133 billion dollars for VA and about $ 20 billion for defense military construction program. In discretionary funding, more than $ 113 billion VA will lead to medical care.
The annual agricultural funding scheme calls for $ 27 billion in discretionary funding for FY 2026. This includes $ 8.2 billion for special supplementary nutritional programs for women, infants and children (WIC), in the funding of about $ 7 billion for food and drug administration, which is about $ 1.7 billion and about $ 1.23 billion to help rent.
The Democrats has highlighted $ 240 million in funding in the bill for the McGawn-Dol Food for Education Program, which was targeted in the latest budget request of President Trump.
The annual Legislative Branch Funding Scheme House and the Senate operate about $ 7 billion for operations, US Capital Police and Library of Congress (LOC), Government Accountability Office, Congress Research Services (CRS), Congress Budget Office (CBO) and architect of Capital.
Capital Police will get a boost under the scheme with the CBO, while funding for LoC, CRS and GAOs will be placed at a financial 2025 level. Citing security concerns after the firing of Minnesota MPs, MPs agreed to $ 44.5 million in the emergency fund with the objective of giving beef to security and member security. earlier this year,
Republicans were earlier uncertain about whether the third bill would be passed as part of the package this week. As long as Sen John Kennedy (R-La.), A senior appropriateer, said that a deal worked to allow him to vote on a separate measurement from other bills. Kennedy has criticized the legislative branch funding bill for its proposed spending levels.
He told reporters in late July, “It doesn’t seem appropriate for us to spend that extra, while everyone has to cut.” “Now, some of my colleagues say, yes, but additional expenses are for member safety.”
“If you are going to spend extra money on member safety, find a payment within the bill. I think optics are terrible and policy is terrible,” he said. “We need to catch ourselves for the standard we are catching everyone, and that’s why I am not going to vote.”
Republican also Sen. Chris convicts Van Hollen’s (D-MD). The Trump administration’s resistance to the rehabilitation schemes of the Trump administration to the FBI’s headquarters to reduce the efforts of the annual justice department to pass the funding bill.
The senators initially hoped that the bill, which also gives funds to the Department of Commerce and Sciences, to be part of the package until the trump administration plans were separated earlier this week, until the Trump Administration’s plan to move to the FBI Headquarters.
Speaking from the Senate floor on Thursday, the van Holen, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, which prepared the annual funding deal, stated that he was emphasizing the FBI for an amendment aimed at ensuring that, “Level 5 will be the security headquarters.”
During the view of the committee, he noted his previous attempt to temporarily adopt an amendment to the DOJ Funding Bill, which demanded to block the plans of President Trump to keep the FBI headquarters in Washington, however, DC, however, later, the change was abolished after threatening to tank a bill tank to a staunch GOP opposition.
“This is not done because the members of the Senate Appropriation Committee, Republican and Democrats, did not think that this is the right thing – to preserve what we had previously determined and make sure that men and women [of the FBI] One level is 5 security headquarters, “he said.” We did this because the President of the United States was going to throw a fit if this provision was there. ,
Van Holen said that he hoped the bill “will return to the track” in September. However, the chairman of the subcommittee with van Holene, Sen Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) offered a brilliant approach to the next stages of the bill after the holiday. He argued that there is a possibility of focusing a lot in September that a funding is likely to make a deal on a stopgap, also known as a constant resolution (CR), to keep the government funded beyond the time limit of 30 September shutdown.
Moran said, “When we come back from holiday, we will go to work on CR to get us so that I think if CJS has a way, it is probably CR and will continue,” Moran said. “All the work we have done are gone, and we will go back to CR and fund those agencies at the same level and in the same way we did last year.”
“Every time we say that we want to bill the appropriation, there is someone who has a reason,” not this time, “not one, not one,” no – because I did not find what I want, “he said. “And this time we are arguing on an amendment that was allowed to the senator who is objecting, but he wanted a commitment to get the result she wanted.”
He said, “And he could not win in the committee, and he will not win on the fighter of the Senate, but he can, I will not think, but he can make his case. But he rejected that option,” he said.
