Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026
Floor Speech
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this package today, which includes the Financial Services-General Government and the National Security- Department of State-Related Programs appropriations bills.
I begin by offering my gratitude to everyone who put in the long hours and late nights to craft this package: Ranking Member Steny Hoyer of Financial Services and Lois Frankel on National Security-Department of State, who led these negotiations and secured important provisions which we could all be proud of.
I thank the Appropriations Committee staff in particular: Matt Smith, Erin Kolodjeski, Philip Tizzani, Ed Etzkorn, and Laurie Mignone, who worked tirelessly to produce this legislation.
I thank our counterparts in the majority, led by my friend, Chairman Cole, and the subcommittee chairs, David Joyce and Mario Diaz-Balart.
These two bills are a continuation of our efforts to reassert Congress' power of the purse, reject $163 billion in cuts proposed by the Trump administration, constrain the White House's abuse of the budget process, and protect Democratic priorities at home and abroad.
This bill supports the small businesses and entrepreneurs that fuel the American economy by providing more than $1 billion for the Small Business Administration and increasing funding for entrepreneurial development programs by $13 million.
Small businesses employ nearly half of the American workforce. At a time when so many families are feeling the weight of the affordability crisis and job prospects feel far and few between, we must do everything in our power to increase economic opportunities in the communities that need it most.
In support of this goal, this bill also provides $324 million for community development financial institutions, rejecting efforts by the Trump administration to fully eliminate large portions of this program.
As we look ahead to an election year, this bill increases funding for election security grants by $30 million, providing States and localities with the resources that they need to shore up our election infrastructure and defend our democracy against any form of interference that could deny us the most basic right.
In addition to our right to vote, this bill protects our right to counsel codified in the Sixth Amendment by increasing funding for Federal public defenders by $315 million. This helps to ensure due process is not just a privilege reserved for the wealthy few, but a protection guaranteed to all of us, regardless of status.
This package not only supports democracy at home but advances it abroad. It protects funding to fully meet our treaty obligations, affirming American leadership at the U.N. and other international organizations.
It supports women around the globe, protecting funding for bilateral family planning and the U.N. Population Fund, and it facilitates American cooperation with international environmental initiatives by blocking policy riders that would have prevented our participation.
In fact, there is not a single poison pill policy rider in these bills. Both we and our Republican colleagues agreed to leave these partisan provisions out of this package and pursue a reasonable compromise. I am glad that we could reach this agreement and move forward with a package that isn't perfect, but it is one that we can all support.
While there are certainly some things that I would change about these measures, they are both vastly superior to yet another continuing resolution or a lapse in funding, either of which would afford the Trump administration greater leeway to abuse the budget process, which they have shown an eagerness to do from the moment they took office.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud of the work that was done in a bipartisan fashion to produce this funding package. I look forward to voting for it, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for it.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel), the distinguished ranking member of the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee.
Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Chair, I thank Ranking Member DeLauro for yielding.
I rise in support of the fiscal year 2026 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs funding bill, a bipartisan package that strengthens American leadership and aims to make our country safer, more secure, and more prosperous.
Let me start by thanking our chair of the main committee, Mr. Cole; my ranking member, Representative DeLauro; the members of our subcommittee; and the hardworking staff who helped to get the bill done, the majority team and our Democratic team of Erin Kolodjeski, Laurie Mignone, Ed Etzkorn, and Jenn Miller. A most big thank you to our subcommittee chair, Mario Diaz-Balart. We have known each other for decades, dating back to our time in the State legislature. I am grateful for his fine leadership and friendship.
Mr. Chair, this bill reflects what I believe most Americans want from their elected leaders: to work together respectfully in a bipartisan way to get things done. At a time of global uncertainty, it is critical that we face the world with a unified front.
This bill was not an easy task to come by. We have, in my opinion, and the opinion of many on my side of the aisle, a disappointing reduction in top-line funding. The infrastructure needed to deliver foreign assistance has, in many ways, including the illegal destruction of USAID, been dismantled.
With that said, I am proud to say that we worked hard to produce the bill to affirm U.S. leadership on the world stage, recognizing the reorganization of the State Department and reasserting Congress' constitutional power of the purse.
This bill funds what should be the core missions of the State Department: diplomacy, development, and humanitarian assistance. It supports our diplomats overseas, staffs our embassies, and protects U.S. missions around the world. It invests in global health programs, from HIV to maternal and child health to tuberculosis, stopping infectious and preventable diseases before they reach our shores. It funds humanitarian efforts to respond to natural disasters, assists those displaced by conflict, and provides lifesaving nutrition to the hungry. It protects international basic education so children in poverty and crisis have a chance at opportunity.
The bill empowers women and girls by safeguarding funding for family planning, women's economic empowerment, and Women, Peace, and Security.
It supports access to objective information through outlets like Voice of America, pushing back against Russian and Chinese propaganda.
The bill upholds our commitments to allies like Jordan, Egypt, Taiwan, and Israel. Importantly, it reasserts congressional oversight over critical independent agencies that were targeted for dismantling.
This legislation affirms a simple truth: Foreign assistance is not a charity. It is a strategic investment. At just a small fraction of our Federal budget, it delivers outsized returns for our national security, our economy, and our global influence because we know that hunger, poverty, ignorance, repression, and hopelessness create the conditions where extremism and conflict take root. I can say this as a mother who watched her son put on the uniform and deploy to two wars: By investing in global stability, we reduce the need for costly and deadly military intervention.
Isolation is not an option. When the United States pulls back, our adversaries like Iran, China, and Russia double down. They move in to fill the void, rewrite the rules, expand their influence, and undermine democratic values.
This bill helps ensure that American leadership, not authoritarian influence, shapes the future.
I know we know that we are currently operating under a 2024 budget. Over the past 2 years, the world has changed, and our institutions have changed with it.
This bill reflects those realities and adapts how we carry out foreign assistance in a more strategic and accountable way.
This is a serious, bipartisan compromise with a goal of advancing American leadership around the world. It is my hope that this bill will give the administration the tools and funding needed to make our country safer, more secure, and more prosperous, with the understanding that they must be partners with Congress.
Mr. Chair, I proudly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bipartisan bill.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Meng), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I think it is fair to say that many within this institution and also outside of the institution thought that we could not get an appropriations process in the U.S. Congress back on track, that we would be unable to pass appropriations bills, that we would face another potential government shutdown, and that we could not make the process work in the way that it has historically worked, which is Democrats and Republicans coming together to hammer out bills that meet the needs of the American people and do this every single year, which it has done historically.
In a negotiation, no one gets everything that they want. You compromise for a greater good, and you need willing partners to participate in that effort.
I believe that what we have done here is to show the naysayers that by entrusting appropriations bills to appropriators, we could get the job done. That is what we are doing with six bills already passed and signed and two bills that we will pass today. That is 8 of the 12 appropriations bills, and I believe we are on track to pass all 12 bills by January 30.
Now, if we do not come to an agreement, there are two options. The first option is a continuing resolution, which we can all conclude is no way to run a government. Quite frankly, for me personally, I don't want to turn over the power of the Appropriations Committee to any executive, Democratic or Republican. I believe that the power of the purse resides within the Congress. The second option is a shutdown, which, as we know, is the worst of all possible outcomes.
It hurts the American people, and it really shortchanges the American people. It puts them at risk. It may satisfy a need or an urge that someone here has, but it doesn't reflect well on what happens to the American people. I think we have shown the naysayers that it can be done.
Mr. Chair, I will compliment the chair of the full committee for understanding the need to reassert the constitutional power of the purse entrusted to the Congress through the Appropriations Committee and that we do have to hammer out the bills in a civil way; not for the purposes of the process but for what the consequences are of these 12 bills and the services that they provide to the American people. Whether it is agriculture in rural America, whether it is education and the ability of children to be able to succeed, or whether it is healthcare or transportation, which, in this case, is our role in the world and how we preserve our national security, what we do with our financial circumstances, what we do with our community development of financial institutions to help local communities be able to thrive economically, that is what is within the bills.
It is not just a process. It is the content of these efforts which make that difference and provide what government is here to do: opportunity for people to be able to succeed, to be able to thrive, and to be able to take care of themselves and their families.
Mr. Chair, the strategy and the strength of the Appropriations Committee and its work on behalf of the American people are the heartbeat of the U.S. Government. I am proud to support the bipartisan, bicameral bill that we have fashioned and, again, give credit to both our Republican chairs and our Democratic ranking members for the great work and their negotiating skills to get it done, and to the staff, above all. I am sorry to other staffs, but the Appropriations staff is second to none. They keep our names on the door. They make it possible for these bills to pass.
Mr. Chair, I will just say it is a good package. It reasserts Congress' power of the purse. It does rein in the administration, and it does, for me, protect key Democratic priorities.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support these bills today and to move forward as we continue to look at the next several bills that we have coming up so that we can, by January 30, pass all the appropriations bills and make a difference for the American people.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. The National Endowment for Democracy supports initiatives for which many of my Republican colleagues proudly proclaimed their support. Advocates in Iran supported by NED have been instrumental in documenting the brutality of the Ayatollah's regime.
Over the last several days, we have seen some of the most egregious acts of violent repression in decades as thousands of Iranian protestors take to the streets. The work of groups backed by the National Endowment for Democracy is more important now than ever.
The only people who benefit when we pull back our support for democracy advocates around the world are the dictators and the despots who oppress them.
Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this amendment and hold firm on the agreement that we negotiated.
Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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