The top four leaders of the Senate and House Appropriations committees plan to huddle Thursday to make headway on the next package of fiscal 2026 spending bills, sources familiar with the meeting said Wednesday.
It will be the first meeting among the four — Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine.; House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla.; Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. — since the partial government shutdown ended last week with a spending package that set a new Jan. 30 funding deadline.
That package included three of the dozen annual full-year spending measures: Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction-VA. The remaining nine bills left to be finalized make up the bulk of discretionary spending for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
