Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is actively drafting an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) for Operation Epic Fury, the US military campaign against Iran launched on 28 February 2026, per Bloomberg reporting1. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Bloomberg on 18 April he will push for an AUMF floor vote if the war is not over by Day 60, the 29 April War Powers Resolution (WPR) statutory deadline for congressional authorisation of military force.
Murkowski's on-record framing places Congress in the role of drafting the authorisation The White House has not produced. "There is no question the president should have sought authorization from Congress before striking Iran on this scale," she told Bloomberg; her draft would "let the American people know the limits and objectives of this military operation." Senator John Curtis (R-UT) has reviewed the text and declined to share details.
Hawley's commitment is the sequel to the fourth Senate WPR failure of 15 April, which was blocked 47-52 and in which Hawley first called publicly for an AUMF vote. The Senate Democratic WPR resolution tabled in parallel reached 13 co-sponsors heading into an expected 23 April floor vote. An AUMF would sit upstream of a WPR: authorising the war rather than demanding its end.
The path to the first signed Iran instrument of the 2026 war now runs through Congress rather than through the executive branch. That is a reframe of the Republican posture from blocking withdrawal to authorising the campaign under conditions. Even a passed WPR still requires a two-thirds override to survive a Trump veto, and the Senate's 2020 ceiling on a comparable Iran WPR was 55-45. The AUMF option reshapes the arithmetic by giving hawkish Republicans a vehicle they can vote for rather than one they must block.
