House debates Pentagon spending, crypto as rescissions head to Senate

Niels Lesniewski, CQ-Roll Call on Jul 14, 2025

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WASHINGTON – House members return to town this week to consider the fiscal 2026 Pentagon spending bill and crypto measures, while senators are staring at yet another vote-a-rama — this time on rescissions.

While defense appropriations headlines the House’s week, the floor agenda is full even beyond that, with several significant financial services measures related to stablecoins and other digital currencies in the queue for debate.

“I believe the bills we will have on the floor this week will protect investors, consumers, and make America as President Trump wants, a leader in financial technology and crypto and digital assets innovation,” House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., said Sunday on CBS “Face the Nation.”

While Hill and other Republicans call it “Crypto Week” in the House, Democrats are pushing “Anti-Crypto Corruption Week” calling for opposition to key parts of the GOP crypto agenda.

The Senate week starts, as is so often the case, with nominations, including President Donald Trump’s nominations of Luke Pettit to be an assistant secretary of the Treasury, Anthony Tata to be undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and Joseph Edlow to be director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

But the meat of the Senate’s week is work on a package of spending rescissions proposed by Trump that could kick off with a motion to discharge the measure from committee as soon as Tuesday. The $9.4 billion package of rollbacks to public broadcasting and foreign aid programs, passed the House by the narrowest of margins, 214-212. But among the concerns in the Senate, even among some Republicans, has been the potential effect on rural broadcasters.

In a post on Truth Social last week, Trump emphasized his interest in maintaining the public broadcasting rescissions, warning there could be political ramifications for Senate Republicans who oppose them.

“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together. Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” the president said.

If senators do vote to proceed, there’s up to 10 hours of debate prior to a potentially more narrow vote-a-rama. It could be the fourth such instance of marathon roll call votes just this year. Senate Republicans will need to take the bill up by a July 18 deadline to allow for consideration under the expedited rescission process, but they do not need to finish the work by that date.

Robust committee business

The House Armed Services Committee plans to kick off its full committee markup of the fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill on Tuesday.

Unlike the Senate measure, which was approved by the Armed Services Committee in a closed session last week, the House panel conducts the business in an open session that can often turn into a legislative marathon of its own.

House and Senate appropriators have lots they intend to at least try to complete at the committee level this week, as well.

The House panel is continuing to work through subcommittee markups this week for a number of the fiscal 2026 spending bills. Senate appropriators now plan to meet Thursday to consider the military construction-Veterans Affairs spending measure at the full committee.

Last week, the Senate appropriations process took an unexpected turn on another spending bill when Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Democrats to back an amendment from Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen regarding the future of the FBI headquarters building.

Van Hollen’s language would bar the Trump administration from using funds designed to support the relocation of the FBI headquarters to a site in Greenbelt, Maryland, for other purposes. The move came after the administration said the headquarters would instead move to the Ronald Reagan Building. After adopting the Van Hollen amendment, further work on the Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill was postponed.

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—Isha Raj-Silverman contributed to this report.