Congress is moving along this month on efforts to fund the federal government and prevent another January 30th shutdown, but the toughest fights are yet to come. Entering the week, the House had already passed six of the 12 annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2026, three are now already law, and Wednesday the chamber added to that tally with easy passage of a two-tier minibus package to fund financial services agencies and national security programs.
The vast majority of federal spending has yet to be finalized, however. Work remains to advance massive bills to fund the Pentagon, the departments of Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Homeland Security. Those outstanding measures account for nearly 90 percent of the funding Congress provides each year to federal agencies, and they are being mired in major political disagreements. At the top of the list is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has come under fire by Democrats furious over last week’s fatal shooting of an unarmed woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer. Many Democrats want to withhold support for DHS spending as leverage to demand tougher rules governing officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other DHS agencies. The pushback prompted GOP appropriators, who had initially intended to move the DHS bill as part of this week’s spending package, to scrap that plan. Instead, Republicans yanked the DHS bill from the package for the State and Treasury departments, with plans to attach it to a fourth and final minibus expected to hit the floor next week.
For today, the Senate will take up a Motion to invoke cloture on Calendar #299, H.R.6938, Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations.
The House will wrap up its work week by completing H.R. 2988 – Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act.
