Business meeting to markup an original bill entitled, "Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026", and an original bill entitled, "Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026".
2025-07-31
Source: Congress.gov
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The committee will come to order. Today the committee will consider two more fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills. The defense legislation and the labor health and human services education and related agencies bill. Following my opening remarks and those of Vice Chair Murray, we will vote on reporting these two bills. After those votes, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Defense and Labor HHS Subcommittee will present their bills and we will consider amendments. To date, our committee has considered and reported favorably six fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills with strong bipartisan support. Assuming the approval of the two bills we are considering today, we will have increased that total to eight and address nearly 90% of discretionary spending. We will continue our markups when Congress returns in September so that we can report our remaining bills. We're also, as everyone here is well aware, working on a dual track. As this committee continues to report out bills, our first package of appropriations bills is on the floor of the Senate. I'm hopeful that we can complete work on that package before Congress leaves for the home state work period so that we can be positioned to have another package considered on the Senate floor when Congress returns.
The appropriations process is the key way that Congress carries out its constitutional responsibility for the power of the purse. I again want to express my appreciation for Leader Thune bringing our appropriation bills to the Senate floor. Now, just a few comments on the funding bills before us today. First, we will consider the Defense Appropriations Bill. Let me begin by commending Chairman McConnell and Ranking Member Coons for their outstanding collaborative work to develop a bipartisan bill that provides resources essential to support our men and women in uniform, strengthens our military services and the defense industrial base, and helps ensure that our country is prepared to meet the threats of dangerous adversaries. The bill addresses major funding gaps across the board. It invests in shipbuilding, including providing a critical down payment toward an additional DDG 51, the workforce of the U.S. surface fleet, along with investments in additional Columbia and Virginia-class submarines. It expands critical munitions production. including air and missile defense interceptors, long-range missiles, and next-generation hypersonic weapons developed by our most innovative firms. It funds drone and counterdrone technologies, which are increasingly changing the nature of the battlefield. and its sustained security cooperation with close allies and partners whose growing defense capabilities are force multipliers for the United States and contribute to the deterrence of shared adversaries.
Finally, the bill invests in our most precious asset, the men and women of our armed forces. It shows our continuing commitment to their readiness, well-being, and mission success. The second bill that we will consider is for the departments of labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies. This bill prioritizes funding to help make Americans healthier and supports lifesaving medical research, including through targeted funding increases for Alzheimer's, cancer, Lyme disease, Parkinson's, ALS, diabetes, and rare disease research. The bill also supports families by investing in education, and affordable childcare, which promotes financial stability for working parents and benefits our economy. It also maintains funding for TRIO, a program that I know from the experience in my state has made an incredible difference in the opportunities provided for many low-income and first-generation students seeking higher education. The bill continues funding for key priorities like the low-income home energy assistance program and Job Corps. I want to express my deep appreciation to Chair Capito and Ranking Member Baldwin for their excellent work. on this very important bill. Like the bills already reported by the committee, both of the bills before us today are bipartisan member-driven products. Combined across just these two subcommittees, 95 senators, 95 of our colleagues, submitted more than 11,000 requests
To the committee for consideration. So this bill also reflects an enormous amount of work by the subcommittee members and their staff to go through those 11,000 requests from 95 senators. I would now like to recognize Vice Chair Murray for any comments that she would like to make. And again, express my pleasure with working with her. Senator Murray.
Thank you very much, Chair Collins. Really appreciate all the work you are doing on this, and the ability to work with you has been really great. So I thank you for all your work, and I want to thank Senator McConnell and Senator Coons, the chair and ranking members of the Defense Subcommittee, as well as Senator Capito, Senator Baldwin, the leaders of the LHH. for all the work that went into these two bills that we're considering today. As I have said, these are not the bills I would have written on my own, but they nevertheless represent serious bipartisan work to make some truly critical investments in our families and country's future.
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