WASHINGTON — A draft House spending bill would keep NASA’s overall budget flat in fiscal year 2026 but shift money to exploration from science and other accounts.
The House Appropriations Committee released July 14 its commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal year 2026 ahead of a markup by the CJS subcommittee July 15. A markup by the full committee has not yet been scheduled.
The bill includes $24.838 billion for NASA, nearly the same as the $24.875 billion the agency received in fiscal year 2025, itself the same as 2024 because of the use of a full-year continuing resolution. It is far more than the $18.8 billion that the administration proposed for NASA in the fiscal year 2026 budget request in May.
While overall spending levels for NASA are kept flat from 2025, the bill does shift allocations of funding within NASA accounts. The bill includes more than $9.7 billion for exploration programs, well above the $7.67 billion they received in 2025 and the administration’s request of more than $8.3 billion for 2026.
Other accounts are cut to make up for the increase in exploration. Science, funded at more than $7.3 billion in 2025, would receive exactly $6 billion in the House bill. That is far better than the administration’s proposal of $3.9 billion, however.
Space technology, which received $1.1 billion in 2025, would get nearly $913 million in the House bill, an improvement over the administration’s request of $569 million. Aeronautics, funded at $935 million in 2025, would get $775 million in the House bill, compared to $589 million in the budget proposal.
Space operations, which includes International Space Station operations and funding of future commercial space stations, is kept nearly even in the bill at $4.15 billion, versus $3.13 billion in the budget request.
The House bill goes along with the administration’s proposal to terminate NASA’s education account, formally known as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Engagement. That account received $143 million in fiscal year 2025.
However, the bill shifts two major STEM Engagement programs, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project, to the Safety, Security and Mission Services account, which funds agency operations. The bill directs that $58 million go towards Space Grant and $26 million for EPSCoR, similar to what NASA proposed for those programs in fiscal year 2025.
The bill provides few other specifics on funding levels, including how the sharp increase in exploration funding would be spent. Such details are usually left to the report accompanying the bill, which the committee has not yet released.
In a statement about the bill, the only discussion about NASA was how the committee’s funding would support “the critical Artemis program to advance American leadership in space” in a section about competition with China.
“This bill also ensures that America remains the global leader in space exploration as adversaries like China ramp up global aggression,” Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chair of the CJS appropriations subcommittee, said in the statement.
The overall funding level for NASA is similar to what the Senate has proposed in its version of a CJS spending bill, although the Senate bill provided $7.3 billion for NASA science. That bill is in limbo, though, as Senate appropriators recessed a markup for the bill July 10 amid a dispute about an amendment regarding funding for a new FBI headquarters building. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not announced when that markup will resume, and has not released the CJS bill text or report.