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“You sir [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] are the failure. Not the men and women [in military service] who are on that front line [in the Middle East]. Not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction. But if there's a lack of a winning strategy [for the Iran War by the Trump administration], they're in harm's way. Their leaders have failed them! And that's what's happening. We have political leadership. You don't have a strategy. You don't have a long-term plan to actually win this war! [voice rising] Win the war! The men and women are going to be able to do it, but they need to have leadership. When will you show leadership?”
That was an emotional Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) near the close of an often confrontational, more than four-hour hearing last Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the $87.6 billion FY 2026 Iran War Supplemental, where the main witnesses were Defense Secretary Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine.
The hearing raised many political and governmental issues worth mentioning including -- as I wrote in last week’s column -- funds being sought for the Pentagon which I will discuss below.
But first I want to deal with several legislative “authorities” in the Supplemental that have nothing to do with the Iran War, but if passed by Congress would give the Trump administration legal authority to spend funds – not part of this bill’s $87.6 billion -- for programs they otherwise could not undertake.
For example, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, in her opening remarks said President Trump was also using the Iran War Supplemental Bill “for authorities to make U.S. taxpayer dollars subsidize the Venezuelan oil industry and to finance the establishment of private investment funds like the one he just handed over to one of his ballroom donors.”
What Murray was referring to was language in the Supplemental that would remove a statutory barrier to the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which provides direct loans and guaranties up to $1 billion, as well as equity investments, to help private companies expand in emerging markets. As of today, that language bars the DFC from providing financing, political risk insurance, or other support to those seeking funds for projects in "countries of concern," a list that includes Venezuela, where the Trump administration wants U.S. oil companies to invest.
Another new authority being sought would “authorize the Small Business Administration to increase the maximum loan amounts available to small manufacturers…as in the Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act,” according to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) material sent to Congress.
The OMB list also includes giving the Environmental Protection Agency authority to allow “the permanent, year-round sale of E-15 [gasoline blended with 15% ethanol], an urgent and needed
policy change that would expand consumer choice,” according to the OMB material. While President Trump has backed year-round sales of ethanol-blended gasoline, this is the first time he has taken this step which is generally opposed by oil refiners. Needless to say it will help Trump politically in states growing corn, the source of ethanol.
Another provision would give authority to the Federal Aviation Administration Administrator “to reallocate any remaining amounts of the $12.52 billion provided by...[the 2025 Big Beautiful Bill] for air traffic control modernization to any element of the Administration's Brand New Air Traffic Control System initiative,” according to the OMB.
Before hemp-derived intoxicants are recriminalized in November, the Supplemental also carries authority for the Agriculture Department to update the statutory definition of final hemp-derived drug-like or alcohol-like products “to allow Americans to benefit from access to appropriate full-spectrum CBD products while preserving the Congress’s intent to restrict the sale of products that pose serious health risks,” according to the OMB material.
Finally, the Supplemental would provide the State Department with authority to access FY 2026 and prior-year appropriations under the headings “Economic Support Fund,” “Assistance for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia,” and “National Security Investment Programs,” and use those former-U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds, some $6 billion, to establish and operate a so-called enterprise fund “to support private sector development, promote economic stabilization, and facilitate job creation in eligible foreign countries undergoing political or economic transition,” according to OMB material.
I should point out this is roughly a program the Trump administration earlier had proposed in its FY 2026 budget request, but Congress had rejected.
According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, published July 15, when Congress passed the FY2026 Consolidated Appropriations Act, on February 3, 2026, it said that former USAID money was to be used as the funds were originally authorized. According to the CRS report, the Trump administration is now trying to reverse that action by seeking this new authority.
During his Appropriations Committee testimony, Hegseth made a series of criticisms of the Biden administration, including that they failed to replace munitions from U.S. stockpiles that had been sent to Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
However, according to a report by the Defense Department Inspector General (DoD IG), released publicly 11 days ago, while the Biden administration “provided more than 3 million rounds [of 155-mm artillery shells] as part of Presidential drawdowns [from U.S. stocks] to Ukraine,” a congressionally-mandated Army Ammunition Plant Modernization Plan was ordered on March 31, 2022, “to increase the production capacity of 155-mm artillery ammunition to meet current and future operational requirements.”
The goal was to increase production of 155-mm shells from 14,000 a month to 100,000 rounds‑per‑month goal during FY 2024 .
To understand what happened, one must know that “The Army builds 155-mm artillery rounds in two sequential processes.” The DoD IG report explained: “First, it builds the projectile part at a projectile metal parts facility. Second, the Army fills the projectile metal part with explosives at a load, assemble, and pack facility, and prepares the round for shipping.”
To help meet the increased metal artillery shell body requirement, the Army paid $469 million during the Biden administration for General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems to build a facility in Mesquite, Texas, that would produce some 30,000 155-mm artillery shell bodies per month.
The Mesquite plant opened in May 2024, but, according the DOD IG report, over 2024 and into 2025, the “contracting officer issued multiple letters of schedule inquiry and letters of concern regarding contractor performance and potential inability to successfully fulfill the contract.”
In fact, under the Trump administration, the Hegseth Defense Department produced a stop work order and, the DoD IG report said, “As of March 2026, the contractor responsible for the Mesquite facility has been unable to produce a single 155-mm projectile metal part that meets the contract’s minimum requirements.”
Hegseth did not specifically mention the 155-mm problem during his testimony, but he did claim “there were five supplementals out of this committee that took munitions one-for-one and sent them to Ukraine and had tried to replace them with the same bureaucratic process that was too slow and didn't replace them in real time.”
At last week’s hearing, Hegseth said, “The Biden administration ignored hypersonics [a new type of missile]. They just decided to pretend like that technology didn't exist and we shouldn't invest in it.”
In fact, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report recently released on July 17, “In 2021[the first year of the Biden presidency], the Navy decided to add hypersonic CPS [Conventional Prompt Strike] missiles -- at a planned cost of nearly $50 million per missile -- to the DDG 1000 class destroyers to enable the U.S. to strike valuable, heavily defended targets from a distance with a non-nuclear payload.”
That GAO report, DOD Needs Comprehensive Strategy to Field Hypersonic Missile Capability, ironically said, “Until mid-2025 [when the Trump administration took power], the DDG 1000 program was generally meeting cost targets for CPS weapon system installation.”
However, the GAO continued, “Over the past year [under Hegseth’s Defense Department], the cost and schedule performance on the first ship to undergo this work, the DDG 1000, has degraded. As a result, the program reported increasing its estimate to upgrade all three [planned DDG] ships from $1.8 billion to at least $2 billion.”
According to this GAO report, Hegseth and his DoD are facing many of the cost increases that his predecessors had, but at the same time they are seeking much more funding to deal with them.
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