Three more FY2026 appropriations bills signed into law

On 23 January 2026 President Trump signed a second-stage FY2026 minibus, enacting full-year regular appropriations for three bills — Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; Energy and Water Development; and Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.¹ The three full-year measures join the three FY2026 bills enacted on 12 November 2025 in the shutdown-ending package — Military Construction-Veterans Affairs; Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies; and the Legislative Branch (carried in the full-year divisions of the same vehicle that carried the Division A continuing resolution) — bringing enacted regular appropriations to six of the twelve FY2026 bills.² The remaining six bills — Defense; Homeland Security; Labor-HHS-Education; Financial Services and General Government; State-Foreign Operations; and Transportation-Housing-Urban Development — continue to operate under the Division A continuing resolution, which expires at 11:59 p.m. EST on 30 January 2026.³

1. Each enacted regular appropriations bill displaces the underlying continuing-resolution authority for the departments and accounts it covers; the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1342, bars obligations in advance or in excess of available appropriations, but the displacement mechanism itself derives from the enacted bills’ own superseding clauses and the structure of the Division A CR.⁴ Agencies recompute apportionments on the enacted figures under OMB Circular A-11 § 120 and resume previously-paused new starts.⁵

2. A lapse on the six unenacted bills after 30 January 2026 would produce a partial funding gap bounded by the unenacted bills’ scope. The October-November 2025 funding gap of 43 days covered all twelve regular bills’ agencies except those funded outside annual appropriations (exempt activities such as Social Security benefit payments and the Postal Service) and those whose appropriations had carry-forward authority.⁶ During a partial gap, § 1342 “excepted” personnel — those performing work for the protection of life or property — continue to work without pay until appropriations are enacted, and the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, Pub. L. 116-1, guarantees retroactive pay at the earliest date possible after the lapse ends.⁷

3. The split between enacted bills and the CR cliff narrows the negotiating surface to the six unenacted bills, which carry any remaining policy riders or spending disputes; conference and floor time concentrates on those bills in the week of 26-30 January 2026.⁸