Congress may consider a number of issues when evaluating national defense components of the Trump Administration's June 24 request for $67.1 billion supplemental FY2026 funding. Table 1 summarizes the "defense" provisions.

On June 24, 2026, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole and Defense Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert announced that the supplemental request was "officially transmitted to the committee for review." Appropriators in the House and Senate may take up a supplemental funding measure as part of a regular annual appropriations bill (e.g., H.R. 9495, a Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2027) or through a standalone supplemental appropriations bill. As discussed below, it may also be possible for Congress to take up a national defense supplemental request through budget reconciliation.

Supplemental Requests: Background

Federal agencies may request additional funding to supplement regular appropriations. Such funding requests are called "supplemental requests," or "supplementals." To transmit a supplemental request to Congress, agencies use procedures established in Section 110 of OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Circular A-11. Agencies typically transmit supplemental requests via a formal letter from OMB's Director to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as spending bills have customarily originated in the House.

OMB Director Russell Vought sent such a letter to the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on June 24, 2026, formally requesting a total of $86.1 billion in supplemental FY2026 appropriations for various activities, including $67.1 billion for Department of Defense (DOD) military and intelligence activities. The letter's two enclosures contained lists of "Urgent Supplemental Funding Needs" and "Urgent Supplemental Authorities" (where "supplemental authorities" would modify enacted statutory language rather than provide additional budget authority.) On July 1, 2026, the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense (HAC-D) held a closed hearing in which several appropriators reportedly requested more details from the Administration on the supplemental request.

Discussion

Comparing FY2026 supplemental request to the department's $1.5 trillion FY2027 budget request

Procedures described in Circular A-11 suggest DOD may provide OMB with detailed justifications for each item in the supplemental. OMB's June 24 letter and its two enclosures do not provide enough detail to ascertain whether any of the requested funds are duplicated in the department's FY2027 request. Congress may request additional information from the Administration to determine whether there is any overlap with the FY2027 request. For example, the letter states that "most of this request will address urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury (OEF)." It then states that $21 billion of DOD's $67.1 billion would "support critical capabilities, munitions procurement, and strengthen the U.S. industrial base."

Congress may assess whether any portion of the June 24 supplemental duplicates the Administration's FY2027 request for activities such as the procurement of missiles and munitions ($95.0 billion), Defense Production Act purchases ($30.4 billion), Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Support ($41.8 billion), Office of Strategic Capital Loan Program ($20.2 billion), or Defense Autonomous Warfare Group ($54.6 billion).

Legislative options for evaluating the Administration's June 24 supplemental request

OMB's June 24 letter did not propose that Congress use a specific legislative process to provide the requested funds. If Congress opts to introduce legislation providing supplemental FY2026 appropriations for national defense, it could do so (1) as part of an annual FY2027 appropriations act; (2) through a standalone FY2026 supplemental appropriations act; or (3) through an FY2026 budget reconciliation process.

Congress has typically acted on previous national defense supplementals by transmitting these proposals through the Committees on Appropriations. Although the June 24 supplemental was "officially transmitted to the [Appropriations] committee for review," Congress could take up a supplemental request through the budget reconciliation process under the leadership of the Budget committees rather than the Appropriations committees. The FY2025 budget reconciliation process may offer insight as to how an FY2026 reconciliation might unfold.

In some respects, DOD funds in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA; P.L. 119-21, Title II) fit the description of a supplemental (i.e., by providing additional appropriations for FY2025 after Congress had enacted full-year FY2025 appropriations [via full-year continuing resolution]). But the OBBBA appropriation process differed from a typical supplemental appropriations process in that the Committees on Armed Services developed the national defense provisions (responding to budget resolution instructions from the Committees on Budget) rather than the Committees on Appropriations. It is unclear whether DOD utilized the process outlined in OMB Circular A-11 Section 110 for formulating or submitting the proposals that influenced or became Title II of the OBBBA. DOD communications in July 2025 situated the FY2025 reconciliation request as part of the Trump Administration's FY2026 budget request, rather than as a supplement to FY2025 appropriations. In that regard, one could argue the Administration treated its DOD OBBBA request like a budget amendment (where a request for additional funds aims to "revise the request for the [next] budget year") while the legislative process more closely resembled a supplemental (by modifying enacted appropriations for the current fiscal year).

In any case, where previous supplementals have involved legislation under the jurisdiction of the Appropriations committees, Congress may opt to evaluate a formal request for supplemental national defense funding through several committees of jurisdiction. For example, in the event that a bill with supplemental appropriations does not have sufficient votes in the Senate to invoke cloture, chamber rules may permit Congress to incorporate contents from a supplemental among the provisions of a budget reconciliation package involving committees other than the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations.