HR 6398 Passed in House – FY 2026 2nd Minibus

After holding a one-hour debate earlier in the day, the House today passed HR 6398, the Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026, by a final bipartisan vote of 397-28. Earlier the two procedural votes to retain Division A (CJS spending), and Divisions B (EWR) C (IER) passed by similar votes.

The bill will probably be considered next week in the Senate, where similar levels of support are expected. Having said that, there are means of delaying consideration of the bill in the Senate that could delay a final vote.

Review - More on New Minibus Spending Bill

Looking at the House and Senate Appropriations Committees web site, the CJS-EWR-IER spending bill I described earlier today is a joint effort of the two committees. Thus, the bill is being treated by the leadership of the two houses as a conference bill. That means that the bill will probably come to the floor in the House under a closed rule, with limited debate and no floor amendments. The Senate leadership will attempt to consider the bill under similar circumstances.

The Republican fringe could still block the Rule being considered this evening with three votes in the Rules Committee. Or they could block the rule on the floor of the House (where Democrats would be expected to vote against the rule on general principles, though that is not a requirement). In either case the bill could be brought to the floor under suspension of the rules where the supermajority requirement would be met with votes from Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Both appropriation committee web sites (House and Senate) provide background information on the bill. They provide links to bill summaries for each of the three Divisions and tables of the congressional earmarks (called ‘Community Project Funding’ on the House page and ‘Congressionally Directed Funding’ on the Senate page). The Senate page provides links to the Joint Explanatory Statement for each Division. Those statements explain the spending allocations supporting the bill, as well as the differences between the language in the Division and in the two original spending bills for the Division. The Senate Appropriations Committee also provides a press release from Sen Murray (D,WA), the Ranking Member explaining the support of the Democrats for the minibus.

 

For more information on the supporting documents, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/more-on-new-minibus-spending-bill - subscription required.

New FY 2026 Spending Minibus Rule Hearing 1-6-26

Yesterday the House Rules Committee added a new (not yet introduced) spending bill to the slate of bills to be considered in this evening’s rule hearing. The bill would combine three (CJS, EWR, and IER) of the nine outstanding spending bills in a single bill. Since the House has already passed a standalone EWR bill (HR 4553), I would assume (not yet having perused the 414 page bill in any kind of detail) that this minibus is somewhat less partisan than the three bills originally introduced in the House.

Interestingly, the two other spending bills are potentially being considered in the Senate as part of their possible minibus consideration of HR 4016.

The big question in the 119^th Congress is always going to be if a spending bill is going to bipartisan enough to pass in the Senate. If it is it will have a hard time passing in the House under a rule because of the tiny majority the Republicans have combined with the willingness of the spending hawks to vote against any thing less than a strictly partisan bill. Or we could just see the Republicans passing partisan bills and seeing them amended in the Senate to a more moderate version that would then pass in the House with Democratic support. Of course, there are just 25 days left until the current continuing resolution expires.

This bill has not yet made its way to the Majority Leader’s weekly schedule beyond the broad statement that: “Consideration of items related to FY26 Appropriations are possible.”

House Passes H Res 1061 – First Minibus for FY 2024 Spending

This afternoon, the House took up H Res 1061, describes as a resolution “Providing for the concurrence by the House in the Senate amendment to HR 4366, with an amendment.", making this the vehicle for the first FY 2024 minibus that I described on Monday. While we will not know for sure until the language for H Res 1061 is published but this should be the language released by the House Appropriations Committee on Sunday.

After just a bit more than the scheduled 40-minutes of debate a recorded vote was demanded. The vote was subsequently held and the bill passed by a bipartisan vote of 339 to 85; the Republican vote was 132 to 83.

While the vote was on H Res 1061, the bill that will go to the President (if the new language is accepted in the Senate) will be HR 4366. That bill started out in the House as the Military Construction spending bill. On November 1^st the Senate passed the bill after adding Senate language  for the ARD spending (S 2131) and THUD spending ( 2437) bills. The revised bill provides compromise language for those three spending bills and adds language for CJS, EWR, and IER spending bills. The remaining six spending bills are due to be similarly considered before March 22^nd.

Senate Begins Consideration of HR 3055 – First Senate Minibus Spending Bill

Yesterday the Senate began consideration of HR 3055. This was the second FY 2020 spending minibus passed by the House back in June. As is typical for spending bills, the first amendment to be proposed for this bill in the Senate is the substitute language from the Senate Appropriations Committee; SA 948.

This amendment would only have the Senate version consider four of the five divisions included in the House version. The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act will be included in a later spending bill. The Senate leadership hopes that the remaining four divisions have a low enough controversy level that they will be able to be passed and sent to the House for conference with some hope of the bill actually making its way to the President’s desk before November 21^st; the end date of the current continuing resolution.

My quick review of the 43 pages this bill took up in yesterday’s Congressional Record did not turn up anything worth talking about here. Below is a quick table of contents for the bill if you are interested in looking for something in particular; please forgive the all-CAPS format, it is a simple copy and past job and I have no desire to go back and put it into a more reasonable case structure. NOTE: the 'Sxxxx numbers' are CR page numbers.

Senate Amendment 948

DIVISION A—COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2020 [S5978]

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE [S5978]

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE [S5981]

SCIENCE [S5986]

RELATED AGENCIES [S5988]

DIVISION B—AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES [S5991]

AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS [S5991]

FARM PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION PROGRAMS [S5994]

RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS [S5995]

DOMESTIC FOOD PROGRAMS [S5997]

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND RELATED PROGRAMS [S5998]

RELATED AGENCY AND FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION [S5998]

GENERAL PROVISIONS [S5999]

DIVISION C—DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2020 [S6003]

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR [S6003]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY [S6011]

RELATED AGENCIES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE [S6013]

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES [S6015]

GENERAL PROVISIONS [S6018]

DIVISION D—TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2020 [S6020]

TITLE I DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION [S6020]

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION [S6022]

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION [S6023]

FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY ADMINISTRATION [S6025]

NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION [S6026]

FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION [S6026]

FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION [S6027]

MARITIME ADMINISTRATION [S6028]

PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY ADMINISTRATION [S6029]

PIPELINE SAFETY [S6029]

TITLE II DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT [S6030]

TITLE III RELATED AGENCIES [S6041]