WASHINGTON—The Senate passed by a vote of 82–15 a package of three bills on Jan. 15 to fund multiple government departments.
The legislation is headed to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, replacing a temporary funding measure that reopened the government at the end of last year. Congress is providing billions of dollars in funding for the departments of Commerce, Justice, Energy, and the Interior. NASA would get $24.4 billion.
Negotiations among top appropriators in the House and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, made the package, released on Jan. 5, possible.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the package “would actually reduce discretionary spending while better focusing funding on key priorities of the American people.”
One
bill allocates $1.7 billion for the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation, $360 million more than the administration’s 2026 fiscal year request.
The Department of Energy would receive $50.8 billion, an increase of $644 million above the fiscal year 2025 enacted level and $4.1 billion above the fiscal year 2026 request. The EPA, the Department of the Interior, and related agencies would receive $42.56 billion. The EPA would get $8.82 billion.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat appropriator in the Senate, said the package prevents cuts by the Trump administration “by once again providing hundreds of detailed spending directives and reasserting congressional control over these incredibly important spending decisions.”
“It is so important we pass full-year funding bills again and refuse to cede power to this administration, and I hope that Republicans will work with us to do that as we pass the remainder of our funding bills,” she said in a
statement on Jan. 5.
The House overwhelmingly
passed the package on Jan. 8.
“Rather than another short-sighted stop-gap measure that affords the Trump Administration broader discretion, this full-year funding package restrains the White House through precise, legally binding spending requirements,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Some Republicans opposed the bill.
“We are more than $38 trillion in debt. The American people elected Republicans to cut spending and eliminate left-wing waste in the budget. H.R. 6938 does none of this, which is why I voted NO today,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), who voted against the package, posted on X.
“Not only does this ‘minibus’ fail to reduce spending, but it is also packed with Democrat earmarks and socialist pet projects that federal tax dollars have no business financing.”
Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-Utah) posted on X that he voted against the bill “because it includes liberal priorities that waste taxpayer dollars on DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] programs at universities, alarmist climate change research, and funding for non-governmental organizations that are actively lobbying for woke priorities.”
