FY '26 Appropriations -- An Update From Oklahoma Members

The 119th Congress, as with most every Congress for the past three decades, is behind on its appropriations work. If they were to approve FY 2026 appropriations on time, in regular order, each chamber would approve 12 appropriations bills and then those would be reconciled and approved, each one individually. This hasn't happened since 1996 (for FY '97) appropriations.

Recent interviews with Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK5) provide some insight into where the Republican majority stands on getting appropriations done. Rep. Bice is the Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, which marked up its appropriations bill Thursday.

Rep. Stephanie Bice:

"Well, I think certainly one of the things that's, I think, being talked about right now is there are some some reductions in some of the spending categories here. But overall, I think we're going to be in a really good place. I know that there's been a focus on HUD and the reductions in HUD dollars, but there's also a focus by the secretary (Scott) Turner, who I actually met with at his office yesterday, to really streamline how HUD operates to ensure that the dollars that are needed get to those most in need."

"We've already passed five of the appropriations bills out of committee; they haven't made it to the floor yet. And we know that this is going to be a collaborative process with the Senate...the appropriations process has to get done, and that's why the House is focused on that right now. Chairman (Tom) Cole is very adamant that we're going to get our 12 appropriations bills through this committee and onto the floor, and that puts us, I think, in a really strong position to negotiate with the Senate. We fully recognize we have to have 60 votes in the Senate. We cannot bypass the filibuster for this appropriations process. but we certainly don't want to continue with another CR if we can avoid it."

"Yes, we do feel confident that we're going to get the 12 appropriations bills out of the full committee and to the floor. Now, whether or not they actually get heard on the floor, I think is a different conversation. We're hearing the defense appropriations bill later, actually today, and we'll be voting on that later today. And then we'll see what the next couple of weeks holds."

Sen. James Lankford:

"We have six legislative weeks to get 12 appropriation bills done. It's not going to happen this year. And it's been very, very frustrating on this. The (Senate) Appropriations Committee has brought, I think, either 3 or 4 bills out of committee already, the plan is for some of those to come to the floor to start passing some of those appropriation bills, probably putting three of them together, and to say these are less controversial, let's move these, and then do a continuing resolution for what we can't actually get resolved. This is a difficult season and it has been for a long time. But our focus has been, let's get appropriation bills on the floor, let's actually debate it, let's work through the process. If you go back to last year, Senator (Chuck) Schumer had 12 appropriation bills -- 11 of the 12 had passed committee for months and never came to the floor. He never brought them to the floor, even though they'd come out of committee. We'd like to avoid that. We'd like to be able to say, how do we actually bring these bills to the floor? Let's actually have debate. Let's do as much of a regular process as we can, knowing this is going to go all the way through until December to try to get things resolved."