Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1032, I call up the bill (H.R. 7148) making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments thereto.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time that I may consume.
Madam Speaker, the House has done a tremendous job these last few months as we have finalized true bipartisan, bicameral bills to fully fund our government in a Member-driven, district-focused way.
Six of those bills have been signed into law by President Trump, fully funding those departments and agencies through the end of the fiscal year.
While the remaining six bills have all passed the House, we are dealing with a partial government shutdown that could have and should have been avoided.
Funding the government is not an optional exercise. It is the most basic duty we have in Congress. Two weeks ago, the House and the Senate struck a bipartisan and bicameral deal to move forward on these remaining appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026.
The House acted expeditiously to pass these bills, marking historic progress for our appropriations process and the return to regular order that every Member of this Chamber wants to see.
I share the frustrations of many that the Senate altered our deal at the last minute. However, our obligation is not to these emotions. It is to the American people.
While we all worked hard, especially our cardinals, to ensure that all 12 bills would be signed into law before the January 30 deadline, the Senate has put us on a different path. The best choice before us is to pass these five bills and the short-term stopgap for the Department of Homeland Security.
This approach delivers full-year funding to more than 95 percent of the government and avoids the consequence of inaction. To continue the government shutdown would be to repeat all the same mistakes my friends across the aisle made in October of last year, throwing Federal employees into chaos and confusion while they are forced to work without pay, wreaking havoc on our airports while TSA and FAA are unfunded, putting undue stress on our military families, and causing further instability to the United States economy.
Shutdowns are never the answer. They don't work. They only hurt the American people.
Today, lawmakers in this Chamber have an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes. I encourage everyone on both sides of the aisle to do the right thing and close out five of our remaining six appropriations bills for FY 2026 while enacting funding for core priorities, including: strengthening America's defense and providing a well-earned pay raise to our troops; advancing lifesaving biomedical research and critical education programs; enhancing the safety and reliability of our skies and infrastructure; supporting small businesses and strengthening cybersecurity; restoring American deterrence on the world stage and reinforcing economic and community strength across the country.
The package also includes a 2-week continuing resolution for our sixth and final bill, the Department of Homeland Security, which will give the White House additional time for negotiations.
President Trump is leading by example and engaging directly with Democrats in good-faith conversations on that front. He also has been explicitly clear that holding the government hostage is wrong. I wholeheartedly agree with him.
As he stated just yesterday: We need to get the government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this bill, and send it to my desk without delay.
I say to this Chamber: Let's get it done. The American people deserve stability, and they expect results. These bills deliver both.
For anyone consulting their conscience, these measures have already passed the House with strong bipartisan support. The work has been carried out, and the responsibility now is to get it across the finish line. This vote is about governing responsibly and doing our jobs.
I look forward to us nearing the completion of our FY26 duties. I urge all Members to support this bipartisan package.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), the distinguished chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and my very good friend.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arkansas.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), my very good friend and the distinguished chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), my very good friend and distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart), my very good friend, my classmate, the co- chairman of the full committee, and the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Moylan), my very good friend.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, when you reach a point like this, there are a lot of people to thank. I will begin by thanking the President of the United States. He supported each and every one of these tranches of bills that have been brought to the floor during this critical month where we completed the appropriations process. We would not be here today without him. We would probably not be voting on this bill without him. He has been working today tirelessly to make sure we followed our own procedures and brought this bill to the floor. I personally thank President Trump for his contribution to funding the government.
People forget around here that he has to sign the bills. If he doesn't sign them, believe me, he can sustain any veto he cares to cast. He has used his influence and his power constructively to bring us together across partisan lines and to pass what are bipartisan, bicameral bills. I am eternally grateful for that.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my own leadership. I don't know where Speaker Johnson got his patience from, but it must be God-given, because his support throughout this process working with us, never giving up, trying to restore regular order, has been incredible and I think unparalleled in the history of the speakership, in my view.
I thank the other members of our leadership: Leader Scalise, Whip Emmer, and Conference Chair McClain. They all worked really hard to make sure that we could come together and work across the lines. They gave us the freedom and flexibility that we needed, but they also provided the persuasion that is necessary both within our own ranks and across the aisle.
I thank especially the cardinals and the ranking members of the subcommittees. The ranking member and I agree, and we have tried to force decisionmaking down because we trust our cardinals and ranking members. They know their subjects. They know one another. They work together. Without them--and they solved most of the issues that were before us--we wouldn't be here. That model worked well because the people that we relied on, our chairmen and our ranking members, are people that we know and trust and that, frankly, know one another and trust one another and work well together. I am extraordinarily proud of this committee for what it did.
I also particularly thank my friend, the ranking member across the aisle. Now, we don't always agree. As a matter of fact, once our mutual friend and former colleague Ambassador Rahm Emanuel called us the odd couple. That may be true. We don't usually start in the same place, but we are here today able to fund the government, 76 percent of the Government of the United States, because of the ranking member and because of her leadership and her hard work to find common ground. I admire her tremendously as a person, and I appreciate her as a working partner.
We also have working partners in the United States Senate. If we didn't have Chairwoman Collins and if we didn't have Ranking Member Patty Murray, we wouldn't be here either.
Again, this is not just a bipartisan or a House agreement. This is a bicameral agreement. Those institutional lines are sometimes more difficult than the partisan lines to negotiate, but we managed to do that. I am proud of each and every one of my ranking members but particularly the ranking member of my committee, the Appropriations Committee, in the House.
We have had a lot of folks who have worked hard. We may have some disagreements in the coming days. We probably will. I would be surprised if we don't. But I know if we work hard, we can work through them and get to a successful conclusion.
My friend, for instance, mentioned body cameras. I couldn't agree more. It is something we added in the bill but something she advocated for and championed. We agree on the need for additional training. There is lots we can find in common as we try to work through this, and I hope we are able to do that.
The important thing today, Mr. Speaker, is to finish the task, to take these bills, which represent the vast majority of things where we have found common ground and agreement in a process of give and take and good faith efforts and compromise and debate, and make sure that they pass and reach the President's desk so we do not put American Federal workers and American soldiers and American public servants out of work. We let them do their job on behalf of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support what is genuinely a bicameral and bipartisan product and one that the President will sign and has urged us to pass.
Mr. Speaker, again, I urge passage of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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