OPINION — “The {Senate Appropriations] Committee recommends will increase for [fiscal 2026 Defense Department (DoD)] applications and initiatives which are oriented to addressing these rising threats and necessities shortfalls — together with, however not restricted to, munitions manufacturing, drone and counter-drone expertise, air and missile protection, growth of next-generation weapons platforms, shipbuilding, safety cooperation with key allies and companions, and different priorities recognized in navy service and combatant command unfunded priorities lists.”
That’s a part of the opening part of the Senate Appropriations Committee report on the fiscal 2026 Protection Appropriations Invoice, launched on July 31, after the laws handed the committee by an amazing, bipartisan, 26-to-3 vote.
The Committee’s suggestion of $852.5 billion is $21.7 billion above President Trump’s price range request. I’ll talk about particular gadgets beneath.
However first I have to say that I’ve not lately learn a committee report masking broad protection points that so typically takes concern with Pentagon selections.
For instance, the Committee members complained about “the late and incomplete submission of the fiscal 12 months 2026 President’s price range request [which] materially impacted the power of Congress to offer for the Division of Protection’s said necessities.”
The Senators additionally questioned why “the Government Department divided the President’s price range request for the Division of Protection right into a discretionary request and a compulsory request,” saying that method “dangers creating pointless funding cliffs, misalignments, and uncertainties.”
In what could possibly be learn as a criticism of Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, the report famous that “in some circumstances, the price range justification paperwork and briefings supplied by the Division have been incomplete, insufficient, and inconsistent with long-standing practices and procedures.”
Actually, the Committee report mentioned that for the reason that One Huge Stunning Invoice (Reconciliation Act for funding fiscal 2025) was signed on July 4, the Committee has obtained a supplementary unfunded priorities record from the DoD totaling $9.5 billion figuring out important shortfalls in main procurement applications that have been neither addressed beneath reconciliation nor have been included within the fiscal 12 months 2026 annual price range request. That quantity, plus different unfunded necessities requested by the person navy providers and combatant instructions got here to a different $53.7 billion.
As recognized by the navy departments and combatant instructions, the Committee then authorized over $20 billion from the providers’ unfunded necessities record in its model of the fiscal 2026 Protection Appropriations Invoice.
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Whereas I talk about among the main add-ons made by the Senate Committee, I’m ignoring the funding adjustments within the report for a lot of particular person weapon techniques in addition to the annual including of medical research, the place Congress yearly typically asserts the wishes of particular person members.
The largest add-on, some $8.6 billion, is for a number of elements of Navy shipbuilding. The Committee claimed the DoD misaligned obligatory and discretionary funding of some $11 billion between the fiscal 12 months 2026 President’s price range request and the One Huge Stunning Invoice within the Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy account.
The Committee report mentioned, “Whereas a few of these misalignments are addressed on this act, or could also be addressed in future acts, different misalignments might require extra statutory adjustments.”
The Committee additionally complained that the Navy “Shipbuilding and Conversion, justification guide was supplied to the Committee solely on July 3, and that the Secretary of the Navy didn’t present price range briefings as requested on a number of shipbuilding applications together with Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines, written program briefs for nearly half of the account, and in no circumstances the Future Years Protection Program profiles regardless of a [statutory] requirement to take action.”
The Committee additionally mentioned it “stays involved about continued delays and capability limitations in Navy shipbuilding, which have elevated whilst Congress has supplied extra funding for Navy to handle shipbuilding industrial base and workforce challenges.”
The report added, “Extra successfully utilizing extra shipyards and non-traditional suppliers is important to handle these shortfalls,” and directed “the Secretary of the Navy, not later than 180 days after the enactment of this act, to submit a report back to the congressional protection committees detailing a plan to develop the usage of extra shipyards and new, progressive suppliers.”
In one other class, the Committee mentioned it “stays involved that the fiscal 12 months 2026 President’s price range request doesn’t adequately prioritize or fund the growth of manufacturing capability for important munitions.”
The Committee’s report famous that the Navy Providers unfunded priorities lists requested “extra funding for each munition amount buys and facilitization [manufacturing expansion] efforts, funding that ought to have been included within the discretionary base price range submission.”
Because of this the Committee added $5.2 billion to the fiscal 2026 price range for munitions and one other $2.1 billion for facilitization.
The Committee complained that DoD and the navy providers “proceed to underfund the facilitization and tooling wanted to completely make the most of the protection industrial base. This shortfall highlights an ongoing disjunction between the DoD’s said necessities and its price range execution methods.”
Because of this, the Committee mentioned, “The DoD will likely be unable to climate pressing, emergent operational calls for, replenish expended stockpiles, and modernize important munitions manufacturing traces in time-relevant methods. The Committee urges the Division to behave with the foresight and urgency required by the present menace setting, and to completely make the most of accessible manufacturing capability previous to a disaster.”
The Committee underscored “the DoD’s obligation to obviously outline munitions necessities, each for baseline stockpiles and surge capability, and to program ample funding accordingly.”
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As for Ukraine, the Committee report welcomed DoD’s “curiosity in ‘Drone Dominance’ and shares the Secretary of the Military’s evaluation that Ukraine is a ‘Silicon Valley of warfare.’” It went on, “Because of this, the Committee recommends restoring funding to the long-standing Ukraine Safety Help Initiative,” the place the Trump administration had advisable nothing.
The Committee added $800 million to the invoice for the Ukraine Safety Help Initiative and mentioned it “encourages the [Defense] Division to maintain a partnership with Ukraine’s armed forces, that are in some ways the world’s foremost specialists in drone warfare.”
Talking of drones, the Committee mentioned that requested funding has not enabled the Combatant Instructions to maintain tempo with the evolving abroad threats from drones, known as within the navy counter-unmanned aerial techniques [C–UAS].
Due to this fact, the Committee advisable a rise of $217 million above the President’s price range request for “layered C–UAS capabilities, together with fixed-site, cellular, and dismounted techniques, in addition to rising applied sciences akin to synthetic intelligence-enabled concentrating on, superior digital warfare, and directed power.” The Committee emphasised “that C–UAS techniques are important to base safety, notably for ahead working areas and high-value fastened infrastructure.”
I discover one extra merchandise value mentioning: The Committee mentioned it was “troubled by a proposed reduction-in-force concentrating on 75 p.c of the DOT&E [the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation] civilian workforce, particularly contemplating the Division’s investments within the ‘Golden Dome’ space-based ballistic missile protection system and the important want for thorough testing of hypersonic weapons.”
The Committee identified that DOT&E “has authorized mandates to make sure the effectiveness and suitability of protection techniques,” and the “growth of digital engineering fashions has created new, related frontiers for the check and analysis ecosystem, presenting alternatives for leaders on the Division of Protection to have higher confidence within the high quality of end-items procured.”
Again in Might, Protection Secretary Hegseth introduced he had decreased the workers at DOT&E from 94 staff right down to 30 civilians and 15 service members as the results of a “complete inside overview” that recognized duplicative roles and positions within the workplace.
The Senate Committee report, nevertheless, added $3 million for DOT&E and stipulated it was “a congressional particular curiosity merchandise,” and directed “the Deputy Secretary of Protection, not later than 30 days after enactment of this act, to transient the congressional protection committees on how to make sure the continuity and sufficient resourcing of missions traditionally carried out by the Director of Operational Check and Analysis evaluation enabling fact-based assessments of proposed acquisitions.”
The Senate Committee model of the fiscal 2026 Protection Appropriations Invoice nonetheless should move the Senate after which be reconciled with the Home-passed model, which is $20 billion decrease and extra in step with the Trump administration request.
There will likely be adjustments, however the Senate Committee has made some factors that should be handled.
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