DC Download: August 2025

The Senate and House Appropriations committees rejected the President’s FY 2026 proposal to eliminate funding for the NERRS.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its bill in July, skipping the customary markup. The bill increased the NERRS Operations budget by $700,000 and kept NERRS PAC funding flat. The Senate bill also contains language that allows NOAA to waive up to 50% of required state cost sharing of PAC funding match. The House Appropriations Committee passed its bill in July. It funded NERRS operations and NERRS PAC at the same level for FY 2024 and 2025 budgets. (See table below to compare the Senate’s mark to the House and the President’s proposed budgets.)

	FY 2026 NERRA Request	Senate Appropriations Committee	House Appropriations Subcommittee	FY 2026 President’s Proposed Budget	FY 2025 Enacted (Continuing Resolution from FY 2024)
NERRS ORF Operations, Research, Facilities	$47M	$34M	$33.5M	$0	$33.3M
NERRS PAC Procurement, Acquisition, Construction	$10M	$8.5M	$8.5M	$0	$8.5M

Now that both houses have passed bills, the next step is for a House and Senate conference committee to meet and agree to final appropriations amounts. NERRA has collected thousands of signatures from friends, community members, and everyone who values Reserves on a letter of support for the System. We will share this with Congress in early September. We are still collecting signatures, so it’s not too late to sign that letter and encourage your friends and families to as well.

While Congress is on break in August through Labor Day, we encourage all Reserves and Friends to invite members of their congressional delegation to visit your Reserve while they are home. There is no greater way to spread the love for Reserves than experiencing them in-person.

Thank you to each and every NERRd for all you do!