COHERENT, INC

DEF · Defense

Lobbying efforts with Congressional Staff were concentrated on the FY26 House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee legislative activity related to two Office of Naval Research (ONR) projects contained originally within PE0603801N focusing on High Energy Laser Programs and Hypersonic Defeat and Counterattack Capabilities. During the 2Q, congressional staff were briefed on the first project, entitled Coherently-Combined Fiber Laser Arrays w/o Wavefront sensing was urged by the Chairman of the House Sub-committee on Defense and was funded in the previous years. It had been funded in the House Appropriations Committee and approved by the House in the FY25 deliberations. The second project also encouraged by Congress deals with the development and acceleration of advanced seeker technology for offensive hypersonic missiles and it too, followed similar funding results as the first project. Unfortunately, both programs were not included in the final version of the FY25 Continuing Resolution and were subsequently funded for FY25. The FY26 appropriations lobbying began during the 2Q 2025 with a briefing to Rep Calvert's staff and a subsequent request for additional FY26 appropriations funding was again sought for these two promising initiatives. During the Jun 2025 HAC(D) mark-up both programs received additional funding within PE 0603801N at $15M and $5M respectively. Also, during the 2Q these programs were moved to PE 0603673N, as PE 0603801N would not be funded in FY26, as part of the Office of Naval Research's efforts to streamline their R&D budget lines.