The House Wednesday voted 312 to 112 to pass the conferenced $900.6 billion fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would authorize $25.96 billion in funding for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
That is the highest authorization limit yet for the agency in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and $100 million more than the Senate would have authorized based on its earlier version. It is also $700 million more than what the White House sought in its 2026 budget request. It is also about $500 million more than what the House would initially authorize.
The annual defense policy bill, which supports an $8 billion topline boost and wide-ranging acquisition reforms, now heads to the Senate for consideration. The Senate floor schedule said a vote could happen as soon as Monday, Dec. 15. Ahead of the House’s vote, the White House released a statement of support for the NDAA and noted President Donald Trump would sign the bill once it reaches his desk.
“This is a good product that was worked in a bipartisan and bicameral fashion,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), said on the floor ahead of the vote.
The bill received largely bipartisan support with 115 Democrats joining all but 18 Republicans in supporting the measure.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the HASC ranking member, noted ahead of Wednesday’s vote that he would support the NDAA while offering reservations over the role House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had in working with the White House to adjust provisions in the bill, to include stripping a measure securing collective bargaining rights for Defense Department civilian employees.
“While I have concerns about how the Speaker and White House handled the final negotiations of the bill, the majority of this legislation reflects months of bipartisan negotiations done in good faith between the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. While I do not support everything included in this bill, on balance I believe it deserves support,” Smith said.
Lawmakers on Sunday unveiled the final $900.6 billion version of the next defense policy bill, which supports an $8 billion topline boost and a swath of proposals supporting the Pentagon’s push to overhaul its acquisition process.
“We’re pleased to announce that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the FY26 NDAA that supports our servicemembers and strengthens our national defense,” Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the leaders of the Senate and Armed Services Committee, along with Rogers and Smith, said in a joint statement. “We urge our colleagues to pass the FY26 NDAA quickly so these vital reforms can begin delivering results.”
The annual NDAA, which is not an appropriations bill, sets policy and spending limits for defense agencies, including the NNSA, which is part of DOE.
The final compromise topline of $900.6 billion, which is only an authorization figure with Congress still working to pass appropriations legislation to fund defense programs, includes supporting $162 billion for procurement, $146 billion for research and development and $34 billion for defense nuclear programs.
For shipbuilding, lawmakers authorized $26 billion that would cover a third Columbia-class submarine and one Virginia-class submarine.
The conference bill also would authorize just over $21 billion for weapons activities, a little under $1 billion more than the White House sought. It is about $800 million less than the Senate would have authorized and $500 million more than the House would have authorized.
Defense nuclear nonproliferation, a controversial spending topic among House Democrats specifically in the appropriations bills, would be set at $2.2 billion, same as the White House and House would authorize and about half a billion less than the Senate would have authorized.
The bill also said the funds in it could not be used to establish a “cap on reimbursement of compensation and benefits for non-Federal employees” either under contract with NNSA, working on nuclear weapons delivery systems at DOD, or working on Golden Dome infrastructure.
In terms of policy, the Senate’s original version of the bill included a provision to classify DOE workers performing “Atomic Energy Defense Activities” as “considered as a position that is necessary to meet national security responsibilities,” protecting DOE workers from layoffs under the Department of Government Efficiency. The conferenced version of the bill said the Secretary of Energy can treat any workers that fall under this category as necessary to fulfill DOE’s national security responsibilities.
The conferenced bill also includes a provision to protect NNSA facilities from unmanned aircraft, or drones.
The bill would also direct the Air Force Secretary and Undersecretary to submit a strategy to the relevant congressional committees “to address aging components and maximize the end-of-life margin” of the ground-based Minuteman III LGM-30G intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would be replaced eventually by the Sentinel LGM-35A ICBM.
Last week, Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said Sentinel would be part of Golden Dome and “moving.” The bill itself said missile defense policy would reflect “Golden Dome for America” policy, and that developing Golden Dome strategy should include “a holistic assessment of the total ground segment requirements to support the architecture” of Golden Dome.