9 In June, the House Appropriations Committee released its draft defense spending bill for 2026 The financial year, by offering a fixed volume in size 831,5 A billion dollars. This decision was made despite the lack of a full budget request from the Trump administration, which creates certain difficulties for legislators.
The draft law was released only a day before its consideration by the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations. The funding offered is subject to spending limits, laid out in “abbreviated” budget request of the Administrative and Budgetary Department, published 30 May. This document contains only general figures, without a detailed breakdown of the programs, which is usually found in presidential budget documents. The administration is waiting, that Congress will pass an additional bill, which will add at least 113 billions of dollars to final defense spending.
The House Appropriations Committee's proposed bill deviates significantly from the administration's plan to fund the US Space Force, offering a significant increase over the approx 26 billions of dollars, included in the document of the Administrative and Budgetary Department.
The budget managers of the House of Representatives restructured the funding of the Space Force, by reducing personnel costs, while significantly increasing procurement and research and development programs. The draft law provides for the allocation of funds in such amounts:
- 1,3 A billion dollars for military personnel
- 4,8 A billion dollars for operation and maintenance
- 3,7 A billion dollars on procurement
- 19,1 A billion dollars for research, developments, testing and evaluation.
For comparison, in the administration plan it was proposed to allocate:
- 1,5 billion dollars for personnel
- 5,8 billion dollars for operation and maintenance
- 3,4 billion dollars in procurement
- 15,5 billion dollars in research and development
Leading Democrats in the subcommittee are opposed to the short term of consideration of the bill, as well as several political decisions, embedded in it. Member of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations Betty McCollum (Democrat from Minnesota) She said, that cannot support the bill in its current form due to the termination of funding Initiatives to promote the security of Ukraine, Pgiving birth to the reduction of civilian positions in the Pentagon, initiated by the Ministry of Government Efficiency, cuts to military health care programs.
Source: https://spacenews.com/house-appropriators-unveil-defense-bill-boost-space-force-funding/