Senator Baldwin Secures Wins for Wisconsin in Senate Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Funding Bills

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement after including several key priorities for Wisconsin businesses, farmers, servicemembers, and veterans in Senate-passed legislation to fund the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Agriculture (USDA) among other agencies for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2026. Last week, the Senate advanced these funding bills on strong bipartisan votes, rejecting many of the deep cuts proposed by President Donald Trump and in stark contrast to the House’s partisan bills.

“I’m proud to help write bipartisan funding bills that give Wisconsin farmers, military families, veterans, and rural communities a seat at the table. Despite the President trying to slash and burn lifelines for our farmers and ranchers, we are investing in our dairy businesses, farmer mental health, and clean water in rural communities. We also are ensuring veterans, including those eligible for the PACT Act, get the support they need, from investing in services at the VA to increasing investment in caregivers for veterans, mental health and addiction support, childcare, and homelessness prevention,” said Senator Baldwin. “I worked with my Democratic and Republican colleagues to advance two bipartisan bills that address the needs of our farmers, veterans, and rural communities for the upcoming year. I’ll be working to protect this critical funding as we get these bills over the finish line in the House and passed into law.”

Find out more about the two bipartisan bills the Senate passed over the weekend to fund military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, rural development, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) below.

Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill

This bill fully funds veterans’ medical care and benefits and invests in critical national security infrastructure while implementing new provisions to hold the executive branch more accountable to deliver for our veterans.

VA Medical Care: The bill funds discretionary VA medical care at $114.9 billion, more than $2.2 billion above fiscal year 2025—delivering the funding necessary to provide essential health services for more than 9.2 million veterans. Additionally, the bill provides $49.8 billion in mandatory funding into the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund to cover the costs of health care related to toxic exposures and expanded eligibility in the PACT Act. This bill funds critical priorities including:

• Rural Health – $342 million to support improved access to care, including expanded access to transportation and telehealth.
• Caregivers – $3.5 billion, $235 million more than the president’s budget request, to help VA fully implement this critical program and ensure legacy participants can keep their eligibility and benefits.
• Women’s Health – $1.4 billion, $96 million more than the president’s request for gender-specific health care services, programmatic initiatives, and improvements to health care facilities to support women veterans.
• Veteran Homelessness Prevention – $3.5 billion, $138 million more than fiscal year 2025, to support critical services and housing assistance for veterans and their families experiencing housing insecurity.
• Mental Health – $18.9 billion, $2.2 billion more than fiscal year 2025, to get veterans the mental health services they need and deserve. This includes $698 million for suicide prevention outreach.
• Child Care – $21.7 million to expand the Child Care Pilot Program and eliminate barriers for veterans in need of child care while attending medical appointments, as well as an additional $3 million specifically for infrastructure modifications to support the Department’s efforts to create drop-in child care centers.

Supporting Our Servicemembers and Military Families: The bill provides nearly $1.9 billion for new family housing construction and to maintain and upgrade existing units, as well as an additional $30 million to strengthen oversight of privatized housing. Additionally, it includes over $3.5 billion for community facilities such as child development and youth centers, schools, medical facilities, fitness centers, dining halls, water treatment plants, and troop housing. This includes over $1 billion for the design and construction of barracks to increase the availability of quality housing for unaccompanied troops and nearly $380 million for the design and construction of child development centers.

Jason Simcakoski Memorial and Promise Act Implementation and Funding: The bill funds opioid prevention and treatment programs, including those established under Senator Baldwin’s Jason’s law, named for Stevens Point Marine veteran, Jason Simcakoski, who lost his life after being overprescribed opioids at the Tomah Veterans Affairs. The bill allocates nearly $710 million for opioid treatment and prevention programs.

Support to County and Tribal Veterans Service Officers: The Senate-passed legislation also directs VA to provide a progress report on the development of a systemic method of facilitating collaboration between county, state, and Tribal Veterans Service Officers, Veterans Health Administration facilities, and Veterans Benefit Administration offices in their respective geographic areas. The goal of this collaboration should be to improve services to all veterans and proactively identify barriers to care or indications that care is substandard.

Senator Baldwin also successfully included an amendment requiring the VA to produce a plan to implement her Commitment to Veteran Support and Outreach (CVSO) Act, legislation to support the community-based employees who work directly with veterans to inform them of eligibility for VA programs and services, file pension and compensation claims, and help them enroll in job, housing, disability, and education benefits.

A full summary of the bill is available here.

Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill

This bill fully funds WIC without benefits cuts, and delivers key funding for agricultural research and rural rental assistance—rejecting cuts sought by President Trump.

Agricultural Research: The bill provides $1.87 billion—an $81 million increase over fiscal year 2025—for the Agricultural Research Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) premier in-house research agency. The bill also provides $1.69 billion for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture—rejecting President Trump’s budget request to slash core capacity funding for land-grant universities across the country and other key research and extension activities, which make important, practical information available to agricultural producers, small business owners, consumers, families, and young people.

Rural Housing: The bill provides $1.715 billion for rental assistance—an increase of $73 million over fiscal year 2025—to help ensure Americans living in rural areas have access to safe and affordable housing. It also continues rural housing preservation provisions, such as the decoupling pilot program, multifamily housing technical assistance, and preservation financing. The bill rejects President Trump’s request to eliminate financing options for very low-income prospective homeowners and includes an increase of $284 million over fiscal year 2025 for Section 502 Single Family Direct housing loans, which provide homeownership opportunities to families with low incomes and has not had the funding necessary to serve all eligible families.

Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network: The bill includes level funding of $10 million for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network, as well as report language requesting that USDA coordinate with HHS and SAMHSA to assess the feasibility of a national crisis line for farmers. Senators Baldwin and Joni Ernst (R-IA) have championed this program and successfully included support for it in the 2018 Farm Bill.

Dairy Business Innovation Initiative: The bill included $12 million for the Dairy Business Innovation Initiative, rejecting President Trump’s budget, which would have zeroed out the program. This program, which Baldwin created in the 2018 Farm Bill, promotes innovation in dairy and supports market-based solutions to market volatility and production swings. The U.S. House-passed budget also eliminates funding for the program, which Senator Baldwin will fight to reverse in bicameral negotiations.

Institute for Rural Partnerships: The bill included level funding of $6 million. This partnership will continue to bring together universities from geographically diverse regions to coordinate research on challenges facing rural America.

A full summary of the bill is available here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.