House GOP fiscal hawks have requested tens of millions of federal dollars for projects in their home districts for fiscal year 2026, an analysis by Fox News Digital has found.

It’s common practice for congressional lawmakers to request funding for specific community initiatives for the people they represent – measures called ‘earmarks.’ Critics of such funding have often referred to it as ‘pork,’ however.

This coming fiscal year, beginning on Oct. 1, is no different – both Republicans and Democrats have requests totaling over a billion dollars in earmarks so far. 

That includes conservatives in the House of Representatives who have been known to criticize what they describe as excessive or bloated government spending.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., for instance, has been approved for more than $55 million in federal funding for projects in his district. 

The figure includes $9 million for the Middle River Fire Company to make improvements and upgrades to its facilities, and $1 million for the development of a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. 

The majority of Harris’ requests are aimed at rural development in his district and the Army Corps of Engineers. Three earmarks were requested for clean water initiatives.

Harris told Fox News Digital when reached for comment on the funds, ‘These awards are certified to directly benefit taxpayers in the district—drawing from existing grant programs that are funded annually. It’s far better for elected members of Congress to designate where that money goes than to leave those decisions to unelected federal bureaucrats. There are no additional funds appropriated for Community Project Funding – they all fall within the agency’s appropriation.’

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., a self-described deficit hawk, was approved for just over $10 million so far. That includes over $4 million for Flexible Neutron Source, a research tool at the University of Tennessee, and $2 million for veterans housing in Knox County.

House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was approved for more than $18 million in earmarks – with the largest request being $4,200,000 for the Silicon Bayou Semiconductor Technology Center at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Higgins’ total sum also includes funding for Army Corps of Engineers projects, as well as rural hospital, law enforcement and clean water initiatives.

He also submitted a joint request with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., for $131,500,000 toward a levee and floodgate system, called the Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Project, aimed at storm damage prevention.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., another member of the House Freedom Caucus, got nearly $15 million in community funding projects approved, chiefly aimed at clean water programs and highway infrastructure.

Boebert was vehemently against earmarks when she first came to Congress. Her opinion has changed since then, however, due to Republican-led changes to the process – which she explained in a 2023 op-ed in the Aspen Times.

She made a similar argument to Fox News Digital when reached for this story: ‘I fought for real reforms to the appropriations process in 2023 to make sure my constituents’ tax dollars go to necessary infrastructure projects, not the wasteful and corrupt spending schemes that took place under Nancy Pelosi.’

‘My district’s roads are crumbling, and our water keeps getting sent to California, where it’s wasted, because Colorado’s politicians won’t invest in water storage or infrastructure investments. My constituents pay federal taxes just like everyone else, and they should see their dollars benefit their communities instead of being sent to sanctuary cities like Denver,’ Boebert said.

Conservative libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., also got some community funding, though only totaling $5 million approved so far. Massie’s requests so far are all focused on construction and rehabilitation for Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Massie told Fox News Digital of the funding, ‘I serve on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee because I believe the federal government has a legitimate role in transportation infrastructure, and the legislature has the constitutional authority to direct the funding of those projects.’

‘In fact, I have voted in the GOP conference more than once to restore congressionally directed spending in the context of transportation infrastructure,’ Massie said.

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chair of the subcommittee for Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), got nearly $10 million in earmarks approved for her rural-suburban Georgia district. 

Those funding requests are largely comprised of infrastructure initiatives, clean water programs, and law enforcement-related projects for Floyd County and other areas.

While known as a fiscal hawk, it’s worth noting that the majority of Greene’s criticism of government spending is directed at foreign aid.

Greene said she was glad to be able to provide for her district when reached for comment by Fox News Digital.

‘I’m proud to bring federal tax dollars back home to Northwest Georgia – where they belong. My constituents work hard, and for far too long, Washington has sent their money to fund foreign wars, foreign governments and globalist pet projects. When I first got to Congress, I opposed the earmark process because I believed it was a tool of the Swamp. But after seeing how it works today, I’ve realized that if we don’t fight to bring money back to our districts, the money goes elsewhere,’ Greene said.

‘I’ll never support billions for Ukraine or other endless wars, but I will absolutely fight to secure critical investments in Northwest Georgia, from water systems and sewer expansions to public safety equipment, roads and broadband.’

The aforementioned lawmakers’ spending requests are far from an exhaustive total list across the entire House, but fiscal conservatives’ earmark proposals show just how widespread the practice is within Congress – on both sides of the aisle.

Republicans have made some changes to the process as of FY2025, however, to narrow what’s allowed.

In an effort to block out funding requests for ‘woke’ or socially progressive policies, GOP appropriators have barred earmarks for most nonprofit organizations.

That move likely saved hundreds of millions of dollars in annual spending, but Democrats decried it as a block on federal funding for LGBT initiatives.

Fox News Digital reached out to spokespeople for Burchett and Higgins for comment but did not receive a response.

President Donald Trump’s week will culminate in a high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine and the broader state of U.S.–Russia relations on the global stage.

The summit, scheduled for Friday, has drawn international scrutiny amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could attempt to broker terms for ending the conflict without formally involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leaving him only a tacit role in negotiations.

Trump has previously said that Putin and Zelenskyy were close to a ceasefire deal but signaled that war-weary Kyiv would have to concede significant territory, an outcome that Ukrainians and many European allies oppose.

Russian forces currently occupy approximately one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory stretching from the Russian border to Crimea — including regions vital to the country’s economy, rich in minerals, industry, and home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

Both the White House and the Kremlin have acknowledged Zelenskyy’s request to join the talks, though no formal invitation has been extended to the Ukrainian leader. If granted a seat at the table, it would mark the first face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.

The summit comes as Russia’s war grinds into its third year and fifth month, with Moscow showing little sign of abandoning its efforts to erode Ukraine’s sovereignty and reassert the territorial influence of the former Soviet empire.

The Kremlin said in a statement on Saturday that Trump and Putin are expected to ‘focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution’ in Ukraine. ‘This will evidently be a challenging process, but we will engage in it actively and energetically,’ the statement added.

‘The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously’

Over the weekend, several European leaders voiced support for Zelenskyy’s push to attend this week’s summit, amid growing concerns that Kyiv’s long-term security could be negotiated without its direct involvement.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said in a joint statement that any diplomatic solution brokered between Trump and Putin must uphold the security interests of both Ukraine and Europe.

‘The U.S. has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,’ European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told Reuters on Sunday. ‘Any deal between the U.S. and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security,’ she added.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also voiced support for Zelenskyy’s attendance at the meeting and called the summit an opportunity to measure how serious Putin is about ‘bringing this terrible war to an end.’ 

Zelenskyy thanked European leaders for their support and said that ‘the end of the war must be fair.’

‘I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations,’ he said.

President Donald Trump is weighing whether to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., as early as this week, Fox News has learned, in an effort to help deal with what he characterized as a surge in violent crime. 

The plans come just one day after Trump vowed on Truth Social to evict homeless persons from that nation’s capital. ‘The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,’ Trump said on social media. ‘We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.’

Trump’s plans, which are expected to be detailed further at a 10 a.m. press conference Monday, would likely involve members of the D.C. National Guard, or the 2,700-member National Guard force that acts at the express authority of the commander in chief.

Unlike other branches, Trump would not have to get the sign off of local authorities to act — likely making their activation a tempting option.

When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump railed against what he described as a ‘ridiculous’ level of crime in the nation’s capital, buffeted most recently by the assault on a former DOGE staffer earlier this month.

‘We want to have a great, safe capital,’ Trump said last week. ‘And we’re going to have it.’

Trump also told reporters that his White House lawyers are looking into ending the Home Rule Act, a law passed by Congress in 1973 that gave Washington, D.C., residents the right to elect their own mayor and local representatives. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also told reporters last week that Trump had ordered law enforcement personnel to increase their presence in the capital, though the additional details on the scope and timeframe of that presence remain unclear. 

Trump is expected to address those plans in a press conference Monday morning. 

However, for Trump, delivering on this promise could be fraught with long-term legal complications — in part, because crime in the city is actually down to its lowest point in nearly 30 years.

Violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 has dropped by roughly 26% compared to 2024, according to data compiled by the D.C. Police Department and released earlier this month. Overall, crime in the nation’s capital has dropped by roughly 7%.

On Sunday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in an interview with NewsNation that Washington, D.C., ‘is more violent than Baghdad.’ 

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, for her part, told MSNBC in an interview Sunday that ‘Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.’

However, it’s not the first time Trump has sought to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital — an effort he has returned to frequently, including during his first term in office.

Trump in March signed an executive order, ‘Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force,’ designed to address issues with a city he has long derided as ‘filthy,’ ‘horribly run’ and ‘crime-ridden,’ among other things. ‘We want to have a great, safe capital,’ he told reporters. ‘And we’re going to have it. And that includes cleanliness and it includes other things.’

However, those powers aren’t indefinite, experts explained to Fox News Digital.

Trump does have the authority to activate the 2,700-member D.C. National Guard without the approval of local officials. Guard troops provide ‘mission-ready personnel and units for active duty in the armed services’ in Washington, D.C., according to their website.

Beyond that, Trump’s ability to exercise authority in the nation’s capital is bound by the Home Rule Act. 

In the more than 50 years since that law was passed, ‘there really hasn’t been a serious conversation about ending home rule governance,’ George Derek Musgrove, a history professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, told Fox News in an interview.

‘And the problem with our federal system is that there are places where Trump really doesn’t have any supporters, and therefore, with the limits of executive power, really doesn’t have that much sway,’ Musgrove said. ‘And he’s constantly probing for ways around that.’

Other options available to Trump aren’t without their own limits. In order to call up the local police force for any meaningful length of time, as Trump has suggested, a president must be able to assert ‘special conditions of an emergency nature,’ according to the 1970s law.

‘If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take federal control,’ Trump said last week. 

However, that’s easier said than done, individuals familiar with the law told Fox News Digital.

‘DC is just a tempting target because there’s not even a lot of legal gymnastics you have to do in order to exert tremendous power [in a city with ]a 90% Democratic jurisdiction. He has it already,’ Musgrove said.

‘But it is morally questionable, I think, and violates democratic principles,’ he added.