On June 4 and 5, 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittees, respectively, regarding the Department’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request. Given the Department of Commerce is the Census Bureau’s parent agency, subcommittee members could ask questions about the Bureau. While no census-related questions were asked during the Senate hearing, several questions were asked during the June 5 House CJS hearing.
Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY), Chairman of the House CJS Subcommittee, noted the Administration’s FY 2026 request includes a 20 percent funding increase for the Census Bureau. The Administration had, as of June 5, not released complete details of its budget request, which motivated several members to ask follow-up questions.
Ranking Member Grace Meng (D-NY) asked for an update on the 2026 Census Test. In addition, she asked for an assessment of how the loss of over 1,000 Census Bureau staff and DOGE’s activities had impacted the agency and what the Secretary was doing to address the concerns that these developments had generated. Secretary Lutnick responded by highlighting the Administration’s proposal to reorganize the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Bureau of Economic Analysis into one agency. He also assured Ranking Member Meng that there was no “weakness in accuracy” in the Bureau’s data. He did not provide additional details regarding the FY 2026 Census Test, stating that “the decennial census is quite far away.” Representative Dale Strong (R-AL) followed up with a question about the 2026 Census Test, noting Huntsville, Alabama, which he represents, is one of the Test’s six sites. Specifically, he asked if Secretary Lutnick would commit to fully funding the test. Lutnick responded by saying “we will deliver the structure to have the greatest census with the best statistical analysis ever in the United States of America.” As part of the same question, Rep. Strong asked the Secretary for his thoughts on excluding “non-citizens” from the census, but the Secretary did not address that in his response.
Ranking Member Meng also asked why the Census Bureau’s independent advisory committees were terminated earlier this year. The Secretary responded by saying that the committees had “sort of run their course.”
The hearings can be viewed on the Senate Appropriations and House Appropriations websites.
