If Congress doesn’t pass the supplemental quickly, services may be forced to cut or shorten certain programs.

“I will have to start making decisions to change training, operations, certification events, those types of things we do to generate our force in the July time frame,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, told members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday.

The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), responded, “I don’t know who’s making this final decision to get the supplemental over here, but we need to get it over here.”

“Both sides need to look at it,” Calvert said. “Obviously, the Senate needs to look at it. It’s going to take some time. And at the same time, we’re going to be doing the base bill for defense appropriations. But it seems to me, based on what you just told me, that we’re going to need to do the supplemental first and get this funded as quickly as possible.” 

The department’s fiscal 2027 request includes $1.15 trillion in the base budget with another $350 billion projected in a reconciliation bill, which is a congressional tactic that allows measures to pass with a simple majority in the Senate. Since neither were determined with the Iran war in mind, the department is leaning on the third, separate, supplemental request to make up the difference, but they have yet to publicly share how much they will seek.

In addition to the costs of the war, the Army has taken on costs associated with deployments of the National Guard to U.S. cities and to the southern border, the latter of which the Department of Homeland Security is expected to reimburse the service but hasn’t to date.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee on Friday that he has been in touch with new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the money owed to the Army.

He said they’re “optimistic” there will be “meaningful movement” within “a week or two.”

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the committee, said DHS owed the Army $1.4 billion, while in another hearing this week, Sen. Jack Reed said it was “a nearly two-billion dollar readiness shortfall.”

The army is slashing training costs across the force to make up for the shortfall, according to ABC News, though Gen. Christopher LaNeve, acting Army chief of staff, disputed the reporting during the Friday hearing.

“We haven’t canceled anything, that report is false,” he said. “It’s based off of prudent planning that we always do normally around this time of the year to take a look at what levers that we can pull as we near the end of the [fiscal year]. We do have a shortfall.”

LAWMAKERS FROM BOTH SIDES PUSH PENTAGON FOR DETAILS ON SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING REQUEST

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Hurst testified in front of the House and Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee earlier this week, and they, too, were pressed for details on the supplemental.

In their hearing in front of the House subcommittee, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) said lawmakers need the details of the request by June 11 because that’s the date the subcommittee meets to mark up the annual defense bill.

Hurst, the Pentagon comptroller, told lawmakers in that hearing on May 12 the cost of the war had reached approximately $29 billion, up from the $25 billion he had told another committee on April 29. The cost will continue to grow as the military presence remains in the region, facing possible Iranian attacks or a potential resumption of offensive operations.

His estimates do not include the cost of repairing damage to U.S. military bases that were targeted by Iran. The department has shared very little information about the extent of the damage to American bases in the region.

The White House referred the Washington Examiner to the Pentagon, which declined to comment.