WASHINGTON — The House approved a compromise $838.7 billion fiscal 2026 defense spending bill today, paving the way for final passage through the Senate next week.
Lawmakers voted 341-88 on a largely bipartisan basis to push forward the defense budget, which was coupled with FY26 spending for several other departments.
The funding proposal includes $8.4 billion more than the Pentagon’s request, falling short of the more than $50 billion in additional funding asked for by the department in the months since it sent its budget proposal to the Hill.
Those funding requirements include $26.5 billion in funding discrepancies between its FY26 request and the reconciliation bill — essentially a laundry list of accounting errors that resulted in shortfalls to key programs like the Virginia-class submarine, some of which were addressed by the additional $8 billion increase.
The late requests also included an additional $2.3 billion in “emergent requirements” and a whopping $28.8 billion sum for multiyear munitions procurement contracts, which largely went unfunded.
In other big moves, lawmakers added $897 million to the Navy’s F/A-XX program and directed the service to award a contract for the engineering, manufacturing and development phase of the sixth-generation fighter. The bill also provides $1.1 billion to continue the E-7 Wedgetail program, which the Air Force wanted to cancel.
The spending bill rejects the Army’s agile funding proposal and added about $300 million to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program, despite the service’s call to end the program.
For more on the FY26 defense appropriations bill, click here.
Although House lawmakers submitted a number of amendments impacting defense matters — including measures that would have limited funding for operations in Venezuela and another to formally change the Defense Department’s name to the Department of War — the House Rules Committee ultimately decided against allowing any of them to move to the floor for debate, leaving the text of the bill unchanged since its release on Tuesday.
The Senate, which returns next week, has until the end of Jan. 30 to pass the spending bill before federal funding runs out.
