Airport Alert: Senate Appropriations Unveils FY26 DHS Bill With Several Airport Wins

December 20, 2025

Last evening, without any fanfare, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) released the text for the Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations bill and its accompanying report. This is known as the “Chair’s mark” and reflects only Republican recommendations.

The mark recommends a total of $66 billion in discretionary funding for DHS, including TSA and CBP. The mark includes several airport priorities within the Transportation Security Administration, notably:

$98.5 million to continue staffing at certain exit lanes, rejecting the administration’s proposal to shift these costs to airports.
$45.9 million to restore funding for the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) Reimbursement Program.
$34.1 million to restore funding for Canine LEO Other Transaction Agreements.
$300 million for the purchase and installation of computed tomography (CT) machines at passenger checkpoints at U.S. airports.
$13.9 million to complete the process of reimbursing airports for the cost of in-line baggage screening systems installed prior to December 31, 2007.
$20 million to interconnect all Category-X airports and the TSA cloud environment.

As a reminder, the House Committee-passed bill included funding for TSA to continue to staff exit lanes, restored funding for LEO reimbursement grants, reimbursed airports for prior baggage screening investments, and significantly increased funding for CTs.

Next Steps:

The Senate has recessed for the holidays, and there are no plans to consider this bill at the committee level – let alone in the full Senate. However, by releasing the “Chair’s mark”, House and Senate leaders will now be able to work to reconcile differences between this Senate draft and the House version of the DHS/TSA/CBP bill before January 30, the date that federal funding is set to expire under the current continuing resolution.

Additional Information: