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News and updates

Final FY26 Appropriations Bills Released

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As plenty of current events grab the national headlines, appropriators on the Hill have been quietly negotiating the remaining FY26 funding bills, ahead of the January 30th shutdown deadline. These bills largely reject the massive cuts proposed by President Trump to HHS, NIH, NOAA, EPA, USGS, and NASA, among many other federal agencies. Congress has also rejected proposals to eliminate multiple federal programs and reorganize agency structures, while looking to rebuild staffing levels after the Trump administration slashed workforces across numerous agencies last year.

Tuesday morning, the Senate and House Appropriations Committee released as one package text of the four remaining FY26 bills: Defense; Homeland Security; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education; and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development. Full bill text is available .

These bills will now need to pass both the House and Senate. The Homeland Security bill is expected to be a point of major contention, as the bill includes modest reforms to ICE (including funding for body cameras and de-escalation training), but does not include broader structural reforms many Democrats have proposed. House Committee on Appropriations Ranking Member Rose DeLauro announced yesterday morning she expects it to receive a separate vote in the House.

These bills include:

  • $116.8 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services ($210 million increase from FY25)
  • $48.7 billion for the National Institutes of Health ($415 million increase from FY25)
  • $79 billion for the Department of Education ($217 million increase from FY25)
  • $1.19 billion for TRIO and $388 million for GEAR UP (level with FY25)
  • Retains the full $7,395 maximum grant amount for Pell Grants
  • $838.7 billion for the Department of Defense, including $145.9 billion for research, development, testing, and evaluation functions ($4.7 billion increase from FY25)

Last week, the Senate joined the House in passing a minibus of three bills: Commerce, Justice, Science; Interior and Environment; and Energy and Water Development. These bills now go to President Trump to be signed into law. Text of the three-bill package is available While most agencies face minor reductions, they are far below the levels President Trump proposed in his budget request.

The bills include:

  • $8.7 billion for the National Science Foundation (a 3% cut from FY25)
  • $7.25 billion for NASA Science (a 1% cut)
  • $8.4 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science (a 2% increase)
  • $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (a 24% cut)
  • $207 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts (same funding level as FY25)

Senator Murray visits UW, celebrating $10M federal funding for AI research

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On Friday, Senator Patty Murray visited the UW’s eScience Institute to speak with students about how they are harnessing AI in their research. Senator Murray recently secured $10 million in federal funding for the UW to expand its secure computing and data infrastructure for AI research. This funding, part of the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, will support Tillicum, the UW’s next-generation computing platform which launched in October.

鈥淚f you don鈥檛 have the computers, if you don鈥檛 have the basic infrastructure, you鈥檙e stymied,鈥� Murray said in an interview with GeekWire. 鈥淪o this benefits everybody 鈥斅爓hether it鈥檚 creating jobs, whether it鈥檚 creating better healthcare, whether it鈥檚 creating more innovators who come here to Washington state to be able to create jobs for the future and make a better way of life for all of us.鈥�

Read more about the visit聽

Photo Credit: Kate Rich

Topline Agreement Reached

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Just in time for the holidays, House Appropriation Chair Tom Cole (OK) and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (ME) have announced a topline agreement for the remaining appropriations bills.

When lawmakers return from their year-end recess, Congress will have four weeks to close out a funding deal before the late-January shutdown deadline. The topline amounts have not been made public, but an agreement is critical to begin negotiations between House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats before the current Continuing Resolution expires at the end of January.

Details per the release:

  • Under this agreement, total FY26 spending will be below the level projected in the current continuing resolution set to expire in the coming weeks, delivering real savings for American taxpayers.
  • Full-year appropriations are necessary to implement Republican priorities aligned with the Trump Administration.
  • Gone are the days of Christmas omnibuses. Funding decisions will move through a deliberate, member-driven process that emphasizes transparency, accountability, and timely consideration.

Congress Home for the Holidays

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After a busy week, Senators huddled on the floor Thursday night as they made an eleventh-hour attempt to find a path forward on bringing up a bundle of five bills or minibus for consideration before the end of 2025. No agreement to move forward was reached after Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both of Colorado, announced they would hold up the package after White House OMB director Russ Vought鈥檚 decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is based in Colorado.

 

The package under consideration in the Senate would fund the Departments of Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce (including NOAA), Health and Human Services (including NIH), Transportation, Labor and Interior, along with the EPA and NSF.

A few Republican Senators have held the bill from moving forward but released a hold after Senate leadership agreed to an amendment vote on stripping earmarks in the legislation. The Colorado hold is new to the OMB decision.

The Senate will resume consideration and negotiations in January.

 

 

NSF Reorganizes

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been reorganized. The first came on Mon, Dec 15. NSF MPS Directorate .

The Directorate structure is unchanged. Within each Directorate, Divisions are replaced by Sections. Each Section has a strict limit of 8 employees.