Senate appropriators tack on $22 billion to defense spending bill for $853 billion topline

WASHINGTON — Senate appropriators passed their $852.5 billion defense spending bill for fiscal 2026 today, adding $21.7 billion to the Pentagon’s topline to boost munitions, shipbuilding accounts and to correct billions in accounting errors in the department’s budget, lawmakers and congressional aides said.

The bill, approved in a 26-3 vote, tees up a fight between the Senate Appropriations Committee and its House counterpart, which adhered to the flat $831.5 billion budget request made by the Pentagon for FY26. (The Senate Armed Services Committee is also pushing for a plus-up for defense spending, while the House Armed Services Committee kept funding flat.)

Unlike House appropriators, which drafted their spending proposal weeks before the Pentagon released its budget request, the Senate committee waited for the budget release and for the reconciliation bill to become law before coming up with their own spending bill.

The bill came together without “significant difficulties” in terms of the dialogue between the GOP and Democrat committee members, Sen. Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, told reporters in a briefing ahead of the markup. However, the overall process, including the committee’s engagement with the administration, was “chaotic at best” with detailed spending and justification coming later, or in some cases not at all.

“It was striking that the president’s request was essentially a cut,” he said. In addition, the request “made a number of big mistakes that we had to correct at the cost of billions of dollars in different platforms and programs. … And so going to conference with the House is going to be a fascinating experience.”

RELATED: How SASC, HASC want to spend reconciliation on Golden Dome, munitions

Senior GOP and Democratic senate aides further detailed those mistakes, stating that in mid-July the Pentagon sent appropriators a request for about $10 billion in “misaligned funds” that the department expected to receive in the reconciliation bill and did not request in the FY26 budget. That included “fairly significant” expenses such as almost $2 billion for advanced procurement of a Columbia-class submarine, $2.6 billion for advanced procurement for two separate Virginia-class submarines and $500 million to complete construction on various other shipbuilding projects, the GOP aide said.

The Pentagon also raised concerns about munitions shortfalls occurring as a result of sustained operations against the Houthis in Yemen and in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer which targeted Iranian nuclear sites, the GOP aide said.

“This is not a new problem, and we are sympathetic to the department’s newfound significant focus on munitions. We really wish it had been reflected in their base budget request, because as we looked at their request, we found spare capacity in a number of critical munitions lines,” the GOP aide said.

A majority of the $21 billion funding boost went to plugging those holes in shipbuilding and munitions, though the GOP aide noted that not all shortfalls were fully funded.

Shipbuilding was the biggest winner of additional funding with an increase of almost $8.7 billion, though much of that money went to “fix” budget issues like the shortfall for the Columbia-class submarine, Coons said. That pot of money included $4.5 billion to reverse a gambit from House and Senate authorizers that was meant to force the Defense Department to adopt the Navy’s Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support (SAWS) proposal, he said.

RELATED: Navy plans to find second shipbuilder for its landing craft program – again

The committee also added advanced procurement funding for a third Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and investments in the maritime industrial base, the GOP aide said.

Munitions accounts increased by $7.3 billion, with Coons calling it a “really significant investment” meant to benefit US European and US Indo-Pacific Command. The boost to munitions funds includes $5.2 billion for additional munitions production and $2.1 billion for munitions facilities. That second sum includes $1.2 billion for a second Patriot line that will also produce THAAD and JASSM, Coons said.

The GOP aide added that even with the flow of additional money, “I think the reality is even this $7.3 billion isn’t going to be enough for the munitions production capacity that that our military needs.”

The Senate committee also included $4.6 billion for air and missile defense, with $2 billion going to Army next-generation air defense capabilities.

Ukraine Funding And F/A-XX

Senate appropriators were more bullish than the other defense committees on Ukraine funding, including more than $1 billion of combined funding for Kyiv and to boost US investments in the European theater. That sum includes $800 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, $225 million for the Baltic Security Initiative and $119 million for other EUCOM-related investments. In comparison, the House-passed defense spending bill contained no funding for Ukraine, though lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have prohibited funds from going to Ukraine.

The Senate bill also diverges from the Pentagon’s plan to put the brakes on several key development programs. It reinstates funding for the Navy’s sixth generation F/A-XX fighter, adding $1.3 billion, as well as reversing the cancelation of the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail program. It also includes $500 million for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 3 satellites to restore competition on that program, Coons said.

Senate appropriators assented to the Army’s decision to cancel the M10 Booker light tank program. However, it made several additions to helicopter accounts, including $360 million for remanufactured Apaches, $65 million for Black Hawk advanced procurement, and $175 million to keep the Improved Engine Turbine Program going.

Unlike House appropriators, the Senate committee did not add additional F-35s, keeping procurement at 47 jets. However, lawmakers did add additional funds for spare parts in the hopes of increasing the jet’s availability.

The bill also adds $1.5 billion for C-130Js and funds for additional EC-37Bs Compass Call aircraft. It also added $216 million for drone and counterdrone technologies.

The GOP aide acknowledged that the Pentagon is likely to dislike certain funding decisions made by the committee. Department officials will have an opportunity to weigh in on the bill as it moves through the conference process, but will need to share additional budget details to help inform the committee, the aide said.

“I think they’ll want to, and I hope that will inform the way they think about a smoother process in FY27,” the aide said. 

Bipartisan Pushback On Budget Process

A markup of the bill this morning resulted in no major changes to the bill. 

The committee defeated an amendment from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., which would have prohibited funding from being used by the Department of Homeland Security for immigration activities on a non-reimbursable basis. It also defeated an amendment from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., that would have prohibited the Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane from being transferred to a non-government entity before the completion of its service life.

No matter the final outcome on topline, Senate lawmakers stressed the importance of getting the appropriations process back to regular order instead of green-lighting another full-year continuing resolution (CR), with Democrats calling out Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought for undermining Congress.

“There seems to be a view among some, including the director of OMB, that you can run a modern military and prepare for the challenges of this century through a full-year CR, reconciliation and rescission. I don’t think that’s sustainable, and I don’t think it works well,” said Coons. “And I think a lot of the service chiefs, if allowed to be quoted creatively, agreed that new starts and important innovations and investments in new platforms cannot be done with one-year reconciliation.”

RELATED: Appropriators restore funding for Commerce’s TraCSS spacewatch effort

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican chair of the defense subcommittee, also said there is no substitute for robust, full-year appropriations and warned against treating $150 billion in reconciliation funds “like a cure all.”

“Moving must-pay bills from base to reconciliation still makes little sense to me, and somehow the process seems to have also allowed important programs to slip through the cracks,” he said.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said during today’s markup that she was “hopeful” that the Senate passes its first package of appropriations bill before the chamber goes on recess at the close of the week, which would allow it to take up the defense spending bill when it returns in September. 

Even under that circumstance, Congress will be under a ticking clock to reconcile the House and Senate defense bills before government spending expires on Sept. 30.