WEEKLY UPDATE

The House and Senate are in session this week. The House will vote on the first of its twelve spending bills this week, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. This bill would fund Department of Defense infrastructure projects as well as the Department of Veteran Affairs. Two weeks ago, the House Appropriations Committee advanced the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026 by a 36–27 vote largely along party lines. The House will likely vote on passage of this bill sometime in July.

The Senate has yet to begin consideration of any appropriations bills. The upper chamber has been consumed with assembling the massive budget reconciliation package, with the goal of passing the bill this week. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the Senate will not leave for its scheduled 4^th of July recess until the bill is passed in the Senate. This bill would then need to be reconciled with the House version passed last month. The Senate version includes $157 billion for the Department of Defense, while the House version includes a slightly lower defense topline of $150 billion.

Secretary of the Navy John Phelan will appear before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense this week to defend the Navy’s FY26 budget request. Senators will likely zero in on the Navy’s shipbuilding budget. Earlier this month, Chairman Susan Collins (R-ME) pressed Secretary Pete Hegseth on the Administration’s reliance on reconciliation to fund critical warfighting ships. Later in the week, the panel will hear from Air Force and Space Force leadership on their budget requests for FY26. Senators will look to ensure that the Department of the Air Force is fielding space assets at a rate quick enough to meet increasing demand for communications bandwidth and ISR needs.

U.S. military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites have drawn criticism from some Democrats, who are questioning President Trump’s legal authority to carry out such actions under the War Powers Act. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a resolution last week to prohibit the United States military from engaging in “unauthorized hostilities” in Iran. War Powers Resolutions are privileged in the House, meaning that a vote can be called on the floor after 15 calendar days without action in committee. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced a similar resolution in the Senate. While unlikely to pass, these resolutions could highlight divides in the Republican party between traditional foreign policy hawks and a growing anti-interventionist wing of the party.

The House is moving forward with its appropriations process despite the absence of detailed budget documentation from the Trump administration. On June 12, the House Appropriations Committee advanced the FY26 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which would provide $831.5 billion in defense funding, which is flat to the FY25 enacted levels.

The bill allocates $29 billion to the U.S. Space Force, a slight increase from FY25’s $28.7 billion and $2.7 billion more than the administration’s “skinny” budget proposal. Despite cuts laid out in the Army’s Transformation Initiative, lawmakers included funding for several platforms targeted for elimination, including the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), and Gray Eagle drones. The committee also set aside $36.9 billion for shipbuilding, including six battle force ships.

While the House has finalized its draft of the Defense Appropriations Act and scheduled a vote on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY26, the Senate has yet to begin work on any of its 12 appropriations bills. Lawmakers are still awaiting full budget justifications from the Trump administration, and Senate appropriators are unlikely to proceed until that information is delivered and a reconciliation bill is passed. That process is expected to begin in July, though it could be delayed until later in the year.

This year’s appropriations process is expected to be difficult. Republicans hold narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.  Any appropriations bill will still require support from at least seven Democrats to overcome procedural hurdles. Meanwhile, partisan tensions over reconciliation and administration calls for deep non-defense cuts are making bipartisan cooperation increasingly unlikely. As a result, there is a growing possibility that Congress will fail to pass full-year appropriations for FY26, leading to a Continuing Resolution (CR) that would keep funding at current levels.

The text of the House FY 26 defense appropriations bill can be viewed HERE.

A summary of the bill can be viewed HERE.

The bill report and funding tables can be viewed HERE.

Army promises to deliver analysis on sweeping changes in 10 days (Defense News 6/18)

“U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll promised Congress today the service would show its homework in 10 days on how it decided to consolidate commands, restructure formations and cancel or restructure a slew of weapons programs. In a memo to the Army, the service secretary announced in early May that major change was underway and dubbed it the Army Transformation Initiative. Yet many of the decisions laid out in the document lacked clear analysis behind them, such as a plan to consolidate Army Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command into one entity and cancel programs just as they were crossing the finish line like the M10 Booker light tank and the Robotic Combat Vehicle”

Trump nominates Adm. Caudle to be chief of naval operations (DefenseScoop 6/18)

“President Donald Trump has tapped Adm. Daryl Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In February, Trump fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti as CNO and the administration has been looking for a permanent replacement. Adm. James Kilby has been serving as acting CNO since Franchetti was removed. On June 17, the commander-in-chief submitted Caudle’s nomination for the role to the Senate and it was referred to the Armed Services Committee for consideration, according to a notice posted on Congress.gov.”

Pentagon review rattles submarine deal amid fears of China’s naval edge (The Washington Post 6/17)

“A Pentagon review of the multibillion-dollar deal for the United States and Britain to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines has unsettled a key ally as China ramps up its naval ambitions for regional dominance. In Washington, the review reflects a concern among Trump administration defense officials and China-focused lawmakers: that the terms of the deal might leave the United States without enough of its own ships and submarines to face off against Beijing’s swelling supply.”

Space Force is contracting with SpaceX for new, secretive MILNET SATCOM network (Breaking Defense 7/18)

“The Space Force in contracting with SpaceX for a new government-owned, contractor-operated satellite communication constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO), called MILNET, that eventually will be integrated into the service’s grand plan for a “hybrid mesh network” combining commercial and Defense Department satellites, a senior Space Force official revealed today. ‘MILNET is onboarding to the United States Space Force through SSC [Space System Command] right now, but specifically to Delta 8, and we are completely relooking at how we’re going to operate that constellation of capabilities for the Joint Force, which is going to be significant because we’ve never had a DoD hybrid mesh network at LEO,’ Col. Jeff Weisler, Delta 8 commander, said today.”

DOD Will Pass Audit by 2028, Comptroller Confirms (U.S. Department of Defense 6/18)

“The Marine Corps has already passed a financial audit, and the Defense Department has until 2028 to do the same, the department's comptroller said today during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington. ‘The first day we came in, [the audit] was one of the first topics the secretary and I discussed, and he actually just put out a memo with guidance for milestones each fiscal year that the department is going to [meet in order] to achieve the financial audit by 2028 or sooner — as he has challenged us to do,’ said Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who is currently performing the duties of the Defense Department comptroller. MacDonnell noted that in addition to the Marine Corps, two other DOD components have passed an audit.”

US Navy is aggressively telling startups, ‘We want you’ (Defense News 6/16)

“While Silicon Valley executives like those from Palantir, Meta and OpenAI are grabbing headlines for trading their Brunello Cucinelli vests for Army Reserve uniforms, a quieter transformation has been underway in the U.S. Navy. How so? Well, the Navy’s chief technology officer, Justin Fanelli, says he has spent the last two and a half years cutting through the red tape and shrinking the protracted procurement cycles that once made working with the military a nightmare for startups.”

‘Oversaturated’: Can the Navy make good on unmanned vessel demand after industry surge? (Breaking Defense 6/17)

“This year, it started with a ‘Tsunami.’ Textron Systems, the Rhode Island-based aerospace and defense firm, was briefing reporters in January on its new family of unmanned surface vehicles, dubbed “Tsunami.” Company executives declined to talk about specific deals in tow, but were confident that the US Navy’s enthusiasm in unmanned systems was only growing. ‘We continue discussions with the Navy,’ company executive David Phillips said at the time, ‘and we’ve been hearing an increased expression of interest’ in unmanned naval vessels.”

Army seeks hefty boost in network funding in Pentagon procurement proposal (Breaking Defense 6/16)

“As the Army rushes to modernize its IT and communications networks, the recently revealed Pentagon procurement budget shows the service wants to pour hundreds of millions more into related portfolios. The biggest increases were seen in the ‘management initialization and service’ portfolio, with a jump to $244 million from $49 million last year. Additionally, the ‘tactical network communications’ portfolio saw a jump of over $488 million, from $378 million in fiscal 2025 to $866 million this year.”

Op-Ed: “Trump’s Tariffs Weaken America’s Military” by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) (The Wall Street Journal 6/17)

“Eighty years ago, the U.S. Army Air Forces staged an exhibition beneath the Eiffel Tower. Thousands of Parisians gathered to admire the B-17 Flying Fortress—an American-built aircraft that helped liberate Europe from Nazi occupation. Primitive by today’s standards, those bombers were the product of a national industrial base operating at full capacity. They were deployed by a trans-Atlantic alliance that shared logistics, intelligence and purpose. That model of coordination is what we need now—but it’s being tested by a trade agenda that favors confrontation over cooperation. As I co-lead the congressional delegation to this week’s Paris Air Show, the world’s largest defense aerospace expo, I find myself asking: Is the greatest obstacle to America’s security not China or Russia but our own trade policy?”