Review – S 2431 Introduced – FY 2026 IER Spending

Back in July Sen Murkowski (R,AK) introduced S 2431, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. At the same time the Senate Appropriations Committee published their Report for the bill. The bill includes one cybersecurity mention and there were two related discussions in the Report. The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) was funded. There were seven additional chemical related discussions in the Report, including spending allocations and earmarks.

S 2431 is similar to S 4802, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025, that was introduced by Sen Merkley in July 2024. No action was taken on that bill in the 118th Congress. HR 8988, the closely related House bill was passed in the House by a vote of 210 to 205, but no action was taken on the bill in the Senate.

Moving Forward

The plan in the House currently appears to be to add the language of S 2431 to the substitute language for the consideration of HR 4016, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026. The Senate has not yet held their first cloture vote that would allow actual debate to begin on the bill. This probably indicates that there is still some backroom dealing going on to determine the broad outline of what will end up in the Senate version of the bill. Then further dealing with determine what further amendments will be considered on the floor.

Right now, SA 3951 from Sen Collins (Chair of the Appropriations Committee) is the current candidate for the substitute language to be considered, and it includes the language from S 2431. But a lot can happen in the short legislative month of December.

 

For more information on the cyber and UAS provisions of this bill, including cyber earmarks, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-2431-introduced-fy-2026-ier-spending - subscription required.