Bacon Announces Nebraska Priorities and National Security Investments Included in Bipartisan FY26 Defense Appropriations

Bacon Announces Nebraska Priorities and National Security Investments Included in Bipartisan FY26 Defense Appropriations

Washington - Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02) today announced the inclusion of more than $508 million in critical Nebraska priorities and $233 million in other defense and national security priorities he supported in the Defense Appropriations section of the FY26 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The bill also includes a 3.8 percent military pay raise for junior enlisted service members, a long-standing priority Rep. Bacon has championed to improve the quality of life for service members and their families. Rep. Bacon joined in the overwhelming 341-88 House vote to pass the minibus on January 22, which now heads to the Senate for consideration.

"The passage of the Defense Appropriations bill is a major win for our national security and for Nebraska's proud military community. Our state plays an outsized role in America's defense, from the strategic missions at Offutt Air Force Base to the thousands of Nebraska service members and civilian workers who support our armed forces every day," said Rep. Bacon. "I thank Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole and Defense Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert for their leadership and bipartisan cooperation in advancing this legislation and ensuring these important projects were included."

Nebraska Defense Priorities

• $474 million for two additional EC-37B Compass Call aircraft for the 55th Wing
• $26 million for USSTRATCOM's NC3 Enterprise Center's rapid engineering architecture collaboration hub (REACH) program
• $5 million to upgrade RC-135 aircraft based at Offutt AFB
• $3 million for contingency planning for extreme health events supporting University of Nebraska Medical Center and the needed military-civilian support

Additional Defense and National Security Priorities

• $200 million for Baltic Security Initiative, a key security cooperation with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to deter Russian aggression and bolster long-term regional defense capabilities
• $20 million for joint military-civilian medical surge, an effort that rapidly combines military and civilian healthcare capabilities to expand emergency treatment capacity during major crises
• $8 million for Global HF relay stations providing a network of high-frequency radio sites enabling long-range, resilient communications for military and government users
• $5 million scaling of rare earth separation capabilities, expanding and modernizing processes to extract and enable larger, more reliable supplies for defense and high-tech manufacturing

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