President Trump Tuesday signed a spending package ending the partial government shutdown that temporarily affected the Pentagon, with the legislation that included the final $839 billion fiscal year 2026 Defense Appropriations Bill with an $8.4 billion increase after the Senate passed it 71-29 last week and the House narrowly passed it 217-214 Tuesday.
The spending boost falls in between the House’s earlier defense appropriations bill that adhered to the Trump administration’s $830.7 billion topline request for the Pentagon and the Senate’s larger $21.7 billion increase included with its original bill, both which were passed by the respective chambers last July. The package also included a two-week stopgap funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security.
As part of an agreement reached between the Senate and the White House as a partial government shutdown loomed at midnight on Jan. 30, the upper chamber moved to consider a five-bill package that included Pentagon funding along with the two week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security. The deal followed Senate Democrats’ unanimous opposition to taking up the Homeland Security bill amid a push for more time to negotiate reforms to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics in the wake of federal agents killing two protestors in Minneapolis.
U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command (ACC) recently hosted this year’s Weapons and Tactics Conference (WEPTAC) at Nellis AFB, Nev., to test out airmen-developed concepts and systems for countering high-tech potential adversaries.
This year’s conference resulted in the creation of the WEPTAC executive plan to guide the Air Force over the next year in changes to tactics, doctrine, and training. At last year’s WEPTAC, “squadron level tacticians developed a tactics improvement proposal, or TIP, to establish tactics for low-cost, high-inventory weapons capability and effectiveness for cruise missiles and counter-UASs,” according to ACC.
“Ranked as the Air Force’s number two TIP, the tactic was later tested by the 96th Test Wing and the 53rd Wing at the Eglin Test and Training Range [Fla.]. Combatant commands rapidly integrated the tactic into current operations to include Operation Midnight Hammer.” The latter, in June last year, involved strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Fusion company Fuse said Monday its subsidiary Fuse Federal Enterprise was awarded a contract for a $151 billion Missile Defense Agency (MDA) program supporting the Golden Dome initiative.
MDA’s Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) is a multiple-award, indefinite delivery indefinite quantity program.
According to the press release emailed to the Exchange Monitor, the SHIELD contract encompasses a broad range of work areas, and Fuse Federal was chosen for its capabilities in radiation testing.