House Republicans Move to Slash ATF Funding, Bar DEA Merger

The company tasked with imposing the nation’s gun legal guidelines may quickly see its dimension and scope of labor considerably decreased underneath a brand new Republican funding proposal.

The Home Appropriations Committee on Monday launched its 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Associated Companies invoice. The 154-page proposal would, amongst different issues, minimize funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by greater than 1 / 4. It might additionally impose new restrictions on how that decreased funds might be spent, together with full prohibitions on spending cash to implement any of the company’s main guidelines adopted underneath the Biden Administration, in addition to the usage of funds to switch any of its obligations to different companies or departments.

The invoice displays Congressional Republicans’ newest effort to advance the objectives of gun-rights advocates. It comes after they efficiently minimize the $200 Nationwide Firearms Act (NFA) tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms as a part of the funds reconciliation regulation handed earlier this month. It suggests Republicans are nonetheless keen to work carefully with Second Modification activists regardless of dealing with intense criticism from some for not going far sufficient through the NFA combat.

That relationship will seemingly once more be examined, nevertheless, as the newest funding proposal nonetheless faces a variety of potential roadblocks within the type of amendments within the narrowly managed Home, competing Senate laws, and the prospect of a possible filibuster from Senate Democrats.

The invoice sailed by means of markup within the Home Commerce, Justice, Science, and Associated Companies Subcommittee on Tuesday on a 9-6 party-line vote. The complete Home Appropriations Committee will contemplate it subsequent.

Home Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R., OK-04) touted the invoice Tuesday, claiming it “brings financial savings to taxpayers and protects the constitutional rights of Individuals.”

“It rights the wrongs of Biden-era politicization and overreach on the Division of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” he added.

Members of the committee’s Democratic minority, in the meantime, blasted the spending proposal as a type of defunding the police.

“At a time when Individuals are frightened about gun violence, hate crimes, and the opioid epidemic, this invoice delivers a devastating blow to the Federal regulation enforcement companies that defend them,” Consultant Grace Meng (D., NY-06) mentioned. “We needs to be investing extra, not much less, within the security and safety of the American individuals.”

Along with sad Democratic legislators, the invoice’s prospects can even should cope with President Donald Trump, whose standing because the Republican get together’s present standard-bearer and penchant for strong-arming Republican lawmakers into following his lead may turn into an element. Whereas the ATF funding cuts and restrictions on imposing Biden-era gun laws align with beforehand introduced Trump Administration priorities, the invoice’s block on utilizing any ATF cash to switch its features to different departments explicitly counters one other Trump purpose.

In its June funds request, the Division of Justice formally proposed terminating the ATF’s standing as a standalone regulation enforcement company and folding its operations into the DEA.

“ATF is eradicated as a separate element, with its features merged into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),” the funds proposal learn. “After absorbing choose features of ATF, DEA will stay as a single element that can tackle violent crime, drug enforcement, and crimes referring to firearms.”

Blocking any funding for such a merger, which might itself seemingly require a separate act of Congress, primarily ends any shot of it coming to fruition. The invoice additionally doesn’t embrace any new appropriations to fund the DOJ’s effort to reestablish a course of for restoring firearm rights to prohibited possessors, one other specific request from the Trump Administration.

Different gun-rights priorities, nevertheless, did make it into the invoice.

For example, ATF’s funds could be slashed even additional if it doesn’t preserve its current enhancements on Nationwide Firearms Act software approval occasions. Beneath the invoice, it will obtain solely 40 p.c of the $1.2 billion earmarked for its whole funds “until processing occasions for Nationwide Firearms Act functions don’t exceed 120 days within the case of paper functions and 60 days within the case of digital functions.”

The invoice additionally makes an attempt to incentivize states to acknowledge hid carry permits issued by different states. It prohibits any of the funds allotted by all the invoice from being disbursed to any state that “imposes a prison or civil penalty on, or in any other case not directly dissuades (together with by imposing a monetary or different barrier to entry)” any citizen with a legitimate state hid carry allow from carrying a firearm publicly for self-defense in the identical method as residents of that state with permits can.

The invoice additional prohibits the ATF from utilizing any cash to “facilitate, advise, promote, or in any other case assist” lawsuits towards Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) or people until the ATF is a named get together to the case, an obvious nod to accusations beforehand raised by gun-rights advocates that the Biden Administration collaborated with gun-control activists in an ongoing lawsuit towards Glock. It additionally restricts the usage of any funds to assist gun buyback applications, “Crimson Flag” legal guidelines, or every other regulation that might permit for emergency gun confiscation with out offering “the gun proprietor with discover and alternative to take part in a listening to.”

Lastly, the invoice accommodates quite a few restrictions associated to the ATF’s record-keeping practices with the purpose of prohibiting any type of gun registry. Along with banning the usage of any cash to create or preserve a registry by title, the invoice would additionally defund the bureau’s Out of Enterprise Information Imaging System—a digitized retailer of recorded firearm transactions made by FFLs who’ve gone out of enterprise that some gun-rights advocates have criticized as a de facto gun registry.