House, Senate lawmakers ignore requested Trump cuts at key science agencies

Congressional appropriators mostly ignored the Trump administration’s requests to slash budgets at several science and data agencies in a package of fiscal year 2026 bills released this week.

House and Senate lawmakers revealed a package of three bipartisan appropriations bills on Monday, including legislation to fund the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, and science agencies — such as the National Science Foundation and NASA — as well as bills that cover the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.

While the Trump administration sought deep cuts for Commerce and many science agencies in its budget for FY 2026, the final bill doesn’t adopt those requests. It instead opts for small decreases or increases at some agencies and maintains relatively similar funding to previous years at others.

The three-bill “minibus” — a term used to describe a subset of appropriations bills that would make up an omnibus appropriations package for the entire government — signals important agreement as the government again nears a possible shutdown. However, lawmakers still have several more negotiated appropriations bills to release and must pass that legislation before the continuing resolution currently keeping the government open expires Jan. 30. 

In the meantime, Democrats and Republicans on Monday both celebrated the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies legislation, as well as the other bills. 

A summary from Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., for example, highlighted the rejection of the Trump administration’s “draconian, misguided funding cuts and program eliminations.” Meanwhile, a summary of the same bill from House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the package “supports President Trump’s agenda to rein in runaway spending.”

Gil Ruiz, director of government affairs for the nonpartisan, nonprofit science policy think tank the Federation of American Scientists, applauded the legislation, telling FedScoop the minibus includes funding levels that are important for progress in science and American leadership. 

“Congressional appropriators understand that sustained, strategic investment in science research and development is essential to American prosperity and security, and they have included meaningful guardrails to help ensure this funding is spent on its intended purpose,” Ruiz said.

Perhaps most substantially, NASA would be funded at $24.4 billion under the bill, which would be a slight decrease from its FY 2025 enacted level but would put the agency well above the administration’s requested cut. The Trump administration sought to decrease the agency’s budget by 24%, which would have significantly slashed its science work and terminated dozens of operating divisions. 

The bill provides $7.8 billion for NASA’s exploration, which would increase that account by $117 million and support missions to return to the Moon and land on Mars, Senate Democrats’ summary said. 

The Republican summary similarly highlighted that the funding would support the Artemis program for exploration of the Moon “to advance American leadership in space and counter the CCP’s malign ambitions.”

The National Science Foundation would be funded at $8.8 billion, rejecting Trump’s proposed 57% cut to the agency. The appropriation would similarly still be a decrease from the agency’s FY 2025 funding level of $9.1 billion, but it would avoid a dramatic wholesale reduction of the agency responsible for federal investment in scientific research.  

That appropriation would include $938 million for the agency’s STEM education work. According to the summary from Senate Democrats, the funding level would support 10,000 new awards and 250,000 scientists, technicians, teachers and students.  

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for its part, would be funded at a level that’s relatively even with its enacted amount from FY 2025, avoiding a substantial cut to the agency’s appropriations. While totals in the House and Senate summaries differed slightly, the funding for the weather, climate and research agency would be roughly $6.1 to 6.2 billion.

According to a release from Senate Democrats, that amount includes $1.46 billion to improve weather prediction capabilities at the National Weather Service, as well as a $10 million increase for staffing at weather forecast offices. Staffing levels at NWS were the subject of bipartisan scrutiny last year as shortages in regional offices prompted safety concerns across the country. 

The legislation would appropriate $1.8 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, ignoring Trump’s request to cut funding for the technology standards and research agency and increasing the agency’s budget from its FY 2025 level. 

Senate Democrats’ summary of the bill said nearly $1.3 billion of the agency’s funding would go toward research advances in fields such as “carbon dioxide removal, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and cybersecurity.” The legislation also increases base construction funding to $128 million for repairs and upgrades at the agency, which comes after reports on the worsening conditions at its facilities, per that summary.

Overall, the Department of Commerce — which houses NOAA and NIST — would get an increase in funding over its 2025 enacted level at roughly $11 billion, though the amounts in the summaries differed slightly. That comes after the Trump administration’s budget requested cutting the agency’s budget to roughly $9 billion. 

That includes $41 million for the department’s regional Tech Hub program, which the Trump administration sought to rescind and re-award funding for last year. That funding would be enough for as many as two implementation grants for those hubs, per the summary.

The Department of Energy would also avoid a requested Trump cut with a funding level of about $50 billion, though totals in summaries again differed slightly. That would keep funding for the agency that houses the national labs and the nation’s nuclear stockpile funded at roughly the same amount. 

That includes an increase for DOE’s Office of Science, which would get a $160 million uptick to $8.4 billion under the bill rather than a $1.1 billion decrease proposed by the Trump administration. It also exceeded the administration’s request for the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response — which secures energy infrastructure — funding the office at $190 million rather than the $150 million requested.

While many agencies would fend off cuts under the legislation, some agencies would receive an appropriation lower than Trump’s request. 

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, for example, would be funded at $25.4 billion, which is a $1.3 billion increase over the enacted level in FY 2025, per the House Republican summary, but lower than Trump’s request. Trump’s budget called for a nearly 25% increase for NNSA, citing the need to “modernize the Nation’s nuclear deterrent and protect the American people.”

Similarly, the Census Bureau would be funded at $1.5 billion, which is an increase over its fiscal 2025 level but lower than the administration’s budget request of $1.7 billion. According to the Senate Democrats’ summary, the increase of $108 million is for its preparations for the 2030 Census. 

Additionally, research institutions have a win in the minibus. Ruiz highlighted provisions in the legislation that would help alleviate the administrative burden in research. 

The language specifically would preserve rates that institutions negotiate with agencies for indirect costs — or those that support infrastructure for research, such as building costs, and not the research itself. The inclusion comes after the Trump administration previously sought to change the way those costs are calculated at the National Institutes of Health and DOE. 

While the bill generally headed in a good direction, Ruiz noted there are still things FAS would like to see, such as “inclusion of additional measures to protect critical research infrastructure like the National Center for Atmospheric Research.” But he urged passage of the measure to  “avoid harmful funding disruptions.”