Congress moves forward in annual funding process, protects federal research

Over the past several weeks, Congress has been moving forward with the fiscal year 2026 (FY26) appropriations process. Appropriations is the process through which Congress allocates funding to government programs, including federal research programs. In May, President Trump proposed major funding cuts for most federal research programs in his FY26 budget request. However so far, Congress has largely rejected these proposed cuts, holding research funding steady.

Both the House and Senate spending bills for agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration provided flat funding for USDA research programs including ARS and NIFA competitive and capacity programs. National Science Foundation (NSF) funding is flat-funded in the Senate, but the House provided a cut of $2 billion. A compromise funding amount will need to be determined as the process moves forward, but even the cut proposed in the House is far less than the $5 billion cut put forward in the president's budget. 

The House is farther along in the appropriations process than the Senate advancing the spending bills that fund Department of Energy-Office of Science (DOE), ARPA-E, USGS, Forest Service research, and USEPA research. The USEPA Science & Technology account saw major funding cuts with all other programs receiving mostly flat funding. See the chart below for specific funding amounts for all programs.

These funding amounts can be attributed to the bipartisan support that federal research programs historically enjoy. That support is due in large part to the advocacy of stakeholder organizations like ASA, CSSA, and SSSA. The Societies met with nearly 100 congressional offices in February to discuss the value of agriculture and natural resources research and advocate for funding.