Six fiscal 2026 spending bills done, six more to go

WASHINGTON — The Senate cleared a roughly $180 billion, three-bill spending package for President Donald Trump’s signature Thursday, marking a halfway point in completing long-delayed fiscal 2026 appropriations.

Before leaving town for a weeklong recess, the Senate voted 82-15 to send legislation combining compromise Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior-Environment and Energy-Water bills to the president’s desk. That’s on top of three other bills — Agriculture, Military Construction-VA and Legislative Branch — that became law late last year as part of the package that ended the longest partial government shutdown in history.

But lawmakers were still racing to complete work on the six remaining spending bills, two of which — Financial Services and National Security-State — passed the House this week. Appropriators were hoping to unveil three of the biggest of the dozen annual bills — Defense, Labor-HHS-Education and Transportation-HUD — as early as Sunday night.

The fate of the final, most controversial bill — Homeland Security — remained in limbo Thursday, with both parties acknowledging that a continuing resolution may be needed as negotiations continue on a compromise. The fatal shooting of a Minnesota woman last week by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent further inflamed partisan tensions over the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

The biggest challenge, however, may be finding a procedural path to get all remaining bills across the finish line by a Jan. 30 deadline, when current funding for most federal agencies is set to expire.

The House is likely to take up a three-bill package next week, combining the compromise Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, and Transportation-HUD bills, assuming those measures are ready in time. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Transportation-HUD subcommittee, said she and Chair Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., were close to finalizing a compromise on their bill.

But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., chair of the Senate’s Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee, didn’t rule out the need for a CR if her bill can’t be completed in time. “I’m gonna say I hope not, but I think that could happen,” Capito said, pointing to a dispute over a White House-backed change in how National Institutes of Health grants are distributed, among other issues.

If the House can pass that trio of bills next week, the Senate would be left with two House-passed packages to clear when it returns in the final week of January, just days before the Jan. 30 deadline.

To speed up the process, senators are considering combining those two packages into a single, larger one.

“My impression is that whatever the bills the House can pass will be … one package,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a senior appropriator. “I think this is the way I and others see a path forward that gets it done, or gets most of it done.”

But Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., another senior appropriator, cautioned that lawmakers are considering an array of ideas.

“That’s an option,” he said. “The key is that we continue to move these bills, and exactly how we package them remains to be seen.”

The House is scheduled to be in recess for the last week of January, potentially complicating efforts to pass such a combo package if the recess isn’t canceled, since both chambers must pass the same bill, with the same number, in order to clear it for the president’s signature.

But there are a number of procedural ways to avoid requiring another House vote on those measures, including adopting a rule for floor debate before their recess that would allow the packages to be combined before reaching the Senate.

Lawmakers have underscored the fluidity of funding talks this week, and while top negotiators are working to avoid any funding patch, they also aren’t ruling out the chances of a stopgap bill of some kind — particularly for Homeland Security.

“I don’t want to do any kind of CR,” said House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla. “We want to do the bills, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Also on the table for inclusion in a package next week is an extension of the effective date for a controversial intoxicating hemp ban. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James R. Comer, R-Ky., said Thursday that he’s working with leadership on a potential extension that could ride with an appropriations package.

Some Agriculture Committee Republicans, including Hoeven, are also pushing for a new tranche of farm aid in the upcoming spending bills.

House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., said before the December recess that he was working with the administration on a second farm aid package, after the Agriculture Department on Dec. 8 announced $12 billion in farm aid to compensate for lost revenue in the wake of Trump’s tariffs.

Hoeven wouldn’t get into exact funding levels he’s seeking or the state of talks with leadership, but he was optimistic about the potential of getting the aid included in a final product. A Republican aide said lawmakers are pushing for an additional $15 billion in aid.

Negotiators were continuing to work through a full-year Homeland Security bill — with some projecting optimism about getting a compromise bill passed before the Jan. 30 spending deadline. But they’re also negotiating so-called anomalies, or funding tweaks, for a full-year Homeland Security continuing resolution in case the effort at a compromise comes up short, according to a source familiar with the talks.

The trio of bills that the Senate cleared Thursday rejected some of the deeper cuts sought by the Trump administration and House Republicans in proposals made last year. The package also includes nearly $5.6 billion in earmarks spanning 3,030 individual home-state projects.

Lawmakers agreed to keep funding levels roughly flat in the Commerce-Justice-Science and Energy-Water bills, after accounting for offsets and other budget maneuvers, while the Interior-Environment bill falls below current levels.

Some lawmakers have raised issues with the package, including Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Colorado Democrats. The pair have been pressing for a provision regarding funding for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in their state, which the Trump administration is seeking to dismantle.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., has also been pushing for a repeal of a provision passed last year allowing senators to sue for $500,000 if their phone records are searched in a judicially sanctioned probe without their knowledge.

However, the bill cleared the Senate without any amendment votes, indicating the lawmakers agreed to abandon legislative changes temporarily, though they are expected to continue fighting for the initiatives in other ways.

(Paul M. Krawzak and Olivia M. Bridges contributed to this report.)