Washington Update: Appropriations Season Enters a Critical Phase
With only a few days remaining before the House and Senate begin their August recess, Congress continues to work through the FY2027 appropriations process. While several appropriations bills have advanced, the Senate has not yet released its version of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill—the measure that funds the National Endowment for the […]
Federal Budget Attention Turns to the Senate
As Congress continues its work on fiscal year 2027 appropriations, attention is now shifting from the House to the Senate, where important decisions about funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) remain ahead. In May, the House Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would reduce NEA funding to $135 million, a decrease of $72 […]
Advocate for NEA Funding by May 21 Committee Date
With the President’s budget request now formally submitted to Congress and the recent resolution of the White House-Congress standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding—which brought an end to the 45-day agency shutdown—attention on Capitol Hill has shifted in earnest to the fiscal year 2027 appropriations process. As expected, the administration has once again proposed […]
Encourage Legislators to Increase Arts Funding
Congress is out of session this week and next, which has created a bit of a pause in Washington. When lawmakers return, they were expected to begin work in earnest on the fiscal year 2027 appropriations bills. That time line is now uncertain. Ongoing disagreements over funding for the Department of Homeland Security have slowed […]
Federal Arts Support Is Built on Strong Relationships
With the President’s State of the Union address now behind us, Washington has entered the early stages of the federal budget process for fiscal year 2027. The administration has not yet transmitted its formal budget request to Congress, but we can reasonably expect one element of the proposal to look familiar. As in previous years, […]
NEA Funded for FY2026…
As we begin 2026, there is good news to report for the arts community. Congress has passed, and the President has signed into law, fiscal year 2026 funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) at $207 million. Importantly, the legislation fully preserves the federal-state partnership, including the long-standing requirement that 40% of NEA […]
FY2026 Appropriations Top Agenda for Congress
Congress has returned to Washington following the holiday recess, and lawmakers in both chambers are now laser-focused on completing a full fiscal year 2026 appropriations package before current funding expires on January 30. At this stage, there appears to be little appetite among House or Senate leadership—of either party—for another government shutdown, and appropriators are […]
Urge Lawmakers to Support Level Funding for NEA
Isaac Brown As the year winds down, Congress is once again focused on appropriations. Following passage of the continuing resolution last month, House and Senate negotiators have shifted to the work of finalizing full-fiscal-year 2026 spending bills for all federal agencies—including that of the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, which funds the National […]
The Government Shutdown
At 12:01 this morning, the federal government shut down. After weeks of brinkmanship, lawmakers in both parties were unable to bridge their differences in time to keep agencies open. While shutdowns have become an almost familiar feature of Washington in recent years, this one carries the same old uncertainties—for federal workers, for the programs they […]
Advocate Now for Federal Arts Funding
Congress returned to Washington this week facing an immediate deadline: current federal funding expires on September 30, and the likelihood of a government shutdown is higher now than at any point in President Trump’s second term. Unlike July’s reconciliation bill, which Republicans passed on a party-line vote, appropriations bills require at least seven Democratic senators […]