On behalf of the Public Policy Committee, we would like to provide an update on the current status of federal funding for NASA SMD, NSF, and NOAA, as the Congressional budget process plays out.
House
At its meeting on July 15th, the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) Subcommittee – the subcommittee responsible for appropriating NASA, NSF, and NOAA funding – conducted a markup of its 2026 Appropriations Bill. We are pleased to relay that the resulting Bill, which passed by a 9-6 vote, would substantially mitigate the cuts to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) proposed in the FY 2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR).
For NASA SMD, the House CJS Appropriations language calls for $6.00B, compared to a FY 2025 enacted budget of $7.33B and a PBR FY 2026 request for $3.90B. The $6.00B includes $625M for Heliophysics, including $54.9M for Space Weather and $20.0M for the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. (For comparison, FY 2025 enacted was $805M and the FY 2026 PBR was $432.5M.) While the bill echoes the PBR in zeroing funding for the Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM; $145M in FY 2025), the EPSCoR and Space Grant programs that are currently funded by OSTEM would now be funded, at levels comparable to FY 2025 ($26.0M for EPSCoR and $58.0M for Space Grant), within the Safety, Security & Mission Services (SSMS) line.
For the NSF, the House language calls for $7.0B, with $6.37B for “Research and Related Activities”. This compares to a FY 2025 enacted budget of $9.05B (with $7.18B for Research and Related Activities) and a PBR FY 2026 request of $4.1B.
For NOAA, the House Bill calls for $5.80B, including $380M for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). For comparison, the current enacted budget is $6.40B, with $248.8M for space weather projects within NESDIS. The House Bill provides no additional details relative to the Office of Space Weather Observations (SWO) or the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), which is housed within the National Weather Service (NWS).
The House report can be found at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20250724/118544/HMKP-119-AP00-20250724-SD002.pdf
Senate
The Senate is one step ahead of the House: at a meeting on July 17th, the Senate Appropriations Committee conducted a full committee markup of the Senate CJS Bill. The Committee rejected the proposed cuts in the PBR for NASA SMD and NSF, instead recommending, by a 19-10 vote, FY 2026 numbers for NASA SMD and NSF that are similar to those in the FY 2025 enacted budgets: $7.30B (a 4% cut) for NASA SMD and $9.0B (< 1% cut) for NSF, of which $7.18B is for Research and Related Activities (the same as for FY 2025).
Within the NASA SMD, the recommended Senate budget for Heliophysics is $887.3M, a >10% increase over FY 2025. The Senate Bill would allocate $247.8M for Heliophysics Research, $85.9M for Solar Terrestrial Probes (including IMAP and MMS), $208M for Living With a Star (with $25.0M for Parker Solar Probe and $100.0M for the Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission), $288.4M for Explorers (including $109.5M for the HelioSwarm MIDEX), and $47.5M for Space Weather. The Senate Bill also provides $148M (a 3% increase) in funding for the Office of STEM Engagement.
For NOAA, the Bill allocates $6.18B, and specifically calls out $150M for the “Space Weather Next” program within NESDIS, “in furtherance of NOAA’s responsibilities under the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow [PROSWIFT] Act.” This is consistent with the FY 2026 PBR.
The Senate report can be found at https://www.congress.gov/119/crpt/srpt44/CRPT-119srpt44.pdf
Overall
These actions reflect a strong bipartisan desire, on both sides of the Hill, to fund NASA and NSF science activities, and operations at NOAA, at levels that are significantly higher than those proposed in the PBR. It is also strong evidence that coordinated and effective messaging by the Heliophysics Community and by our colleagues in other science fields has greatly helped. Please consider sending a note of appreciation to those Representative(s) and/or Senator(s), and their staff with whom you may have spoken.
And, while all this is very welcome and encouraging news, we would stress that there are still several steps remaining in the budget process. The recommendations of the House CJS Subcommittee must be considered by the House Appropriations Committee. Then, each of the two Appropriations Committee Bills must be voted on by the full House and Senate, respectively. Finally, the House and Senate versions of the various Appropriations Bills (the CJS Bill is one of twelve) must be reconciled in “conference” and the mutually-agreed-upon Bill sent to the President to be signed into law. If, for whatever reason, no budget is enacted by the end of the Fiscal Year (September 30, 2025), a Continuing Resolution (possibly short- or long-term), in which agency budgets are nominally set at their FY 2025 levels, is still possible.
We sincerely thank everyone (especially the participants in the Heliophysics DC fly-in event on June 17) who took the time to contact their Representatives and Senators to express their concern about the pressing issues created by the 2026 PBR and to encourage them to work towards these favorable (so far!) outcomes. The SPD Public Policy Committee will continue to work with the AGU SPA Advocacy Committee and the Heliophysics Coalition to monitor the progress of the budgets at various agencies. While we are buoyed by these positive actions to date, we must remain vigilant as we progress both towards FY 2026 and in future years. And we hope that when future requests for actions or involvement in the process are made that you continue to answer the call.
Gordon Emslie, Graham Kerr, Ian Cohen, and Brian Walsh