Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ranking member of the House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee, told the Exchange Monitor last week the most recent bipartisan spending minibus shows lawmakers “making progress” with more work still to do.
On Jan. 8, a three-bill minibus appropriations package that included fiscal 2026 funds for Energy and Water development, including $25.4 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), passed the House floor 397-28.
The bill also includes $8.5 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
The bill was released by top appropriators in the Senate and House on both sides of the aisle. House Appropriations ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said last Thursday the lack of controversial amendments snuck in was a “testament to the good faith of these negotiations that both sides agreed to drop provisions the other found objectionable.”
“What I like about the deal is that we are making progress,” Kaptur told Exchange Monitor in the halls of the Capitol last Thursday, after the passage of the minibus bill on the House floor. “We have to keep a foot on the pedal, we can’t relent. So I’m happy that we got a bill. It is well funded.”
When asked about defense nuclear nonproliferation funds, $2.4 billion in the minibus package, Kaptur reiterated that it was “progress,” but still “incomplete.” Kaptur and other Democrats opposed the $1.9 billion proposed subcommittee level as too low. The $2.4 billion in the minibus is also around $1 billion more than the White House requested.
“On the nuclear front, which I care very much about, we are incomplete as a country in dealing with many aspects of nuclear,” Kaptur said, “whether we’re talking about on the submarine side, being two years behind… or whether it’s dealing with former nuclear sites that have not been cleaned up or trying to prevent proliferation and misuse around the world or trying to find where to bury or dispose of or reprocess our spent uranium, spent fuels.”
Kaptur added, “these are big omissions through the country, and so that’s why in this situation, I’m feeling better than I did, but we have a lot of progress to be made in that segment.”
Kaptur was also upbeat that “regular order is being restored. That is essential here, because there are a lot of forces at work that want to end the normal process of legislation here, especially the appropriations process. So these three bills are the first sign of a regular order restored. And that means regular order for the country, not just for the Congress.