WASHINGTON — The top four leaders of the Senate and House Appropriations committees plan to huddle Thursday to make headway on the next package of fiscal 2026 spending bills, sources familiar with the meeting said Wednesday.

It will be the first meeting among the four — Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine.; House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla.; Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. — since the partial government shutdown ended last week with a spending package that set a new Jan. 30 funding deadline.

That package included three of the dozen annual full-year spending measures: Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction-VA. The remaining nine bills left to be finalized make up the bulk of discretionary spending for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

While Collins and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have aimed to bring up a massive spending package featuring the Defense and Labor-HHS-Education bills in their chamber, Cole has supported a smaller-sized package that he said would be easier to pass by the end of the year.

“That’s certainly our preference right now,” Cole said after a meeting with his subcommittee chairmen Wednesday morning. “We’d like to get something done before Christmas. But again, we’re open to what the Senate wants to do institutionally, and what Democratic friends might be willing to do.”

The Thursday “four corners” meeting is also expected to feature discussion of spending limits for each of the remaining bills, sources said. There is still no bipartisan agreement on topline spending levels, a major impediment to completing appropriations.

And the status of the four bills the Senate has not yet released — the Energy-Water, Financial Services, Homeland Security and State-Foreign Operations bills — is also on the agenda for discussion. The House has reported all 12 of their bills out of committee, mostly along party lines.

‘A squillion holds’

Thune had aimed to start moving this week on a major “minibus” package featuring the Defense and Labor-HHS-Education bills, along with other bills possibly including the Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior-Environment and Transportation-HUD bills.

But forward momentum on that front appeared unlikely Wednesday, as GOP leaders worked to clear up objections among their own members. Senators are set to leave town Thursday for their weeklong Thanksgiving recess.

“There are about a squillion holds on the minibus right now, one of which is mine, and they’re going to have to work their way through that,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., an appropriator, told reporters Wednesday.

“We’re working through those holds,” Thune said at his weekly news conference. “But I would just urge everybody who is interested in having the government funded through the traditional appropriations process to try and work constructively to get these bills up on the floor... and have an amendment process.”

A handful of conservative senators have holds on the package, including Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who wants a vote on his bill that would pay federal workers automatically during a government shutdown.

Others are raising concerns about the overall spending level of the package and some are unhappy with combining multiple bills into one big bundle, which requires unanimous consent.

“I know some of my colleagues have objections on principle of combining these, but I really don’t,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said he also has a hold, but refused to share specifics. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., wouldn’t say if he had a hold and said he is still reviewing the bills.

“The things that are important to me is, we don’t spend more money.... than the president’s budget,” Scott said. “We’ve got $38 trillion of debt.”

Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Hoeven, R-N.D., estimated there are about seven holds and said he is hopeful that all five bills under consideration will make it into the package.

“Hopefully we could get them all, but maybe there’s some subset that works,” Hoeven said. “That’s what we’re finding out. The key, though, is that we have Defense and (Labor-HHS-Education) and whatever else we can get agreement on, and we get it teed up to go to work.”

FBI headquarters progress

One bill that is seeing progress is the Senate’s Commerce-Justice-Science bill, which had been derailed due to a dispute over the Trump administration’s plans to relocate the FBI headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown Washington, instead of in Greenbelt, Md., as previously planned.

Both Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and ranking member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., reported progress without sharing details.

Van Hollen, who has pushed hard for the move to Maryland, said negotiators are “very, very close” to an agreement.

“If we can absolutely finalize this understanding, then it could be included in a package of bills,” he said, referring to the evolving spending package. “I believe we’ll be able to get there on this bill this week, in terms of agreement.”

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