Each Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (WA) wrote a letter protesting a key determination made by Workplace of Administration and Finances Director Russ Vought in regards to the persevering with decision handed to avert a authorities shutdown on March 14. The difficulty?
The partial distribution of emergency funding as decided by Trump after it handed Congress.
Based on an emergency designation memo signed by President Donald Trump on March 24, the administration will partially disburse the emergency funding from the CR,” in keeping with Punchbowl Information’ Samantha Handler on X.
Of their letter, the highest senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee informed the OMB:
“Just as the President does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate.”
Writing . . .
The Honorable Russell T. Vought
Director
The Workplace of Administration and Finances
725 seventeenth Road, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20503
Expensive Director Vought:
March 27, 2025
We write concerning the President’s March 24, 2025, emergency designation memorandum (the Memorandum”), which purports to have been executed in accordance with Part 1110 of H.R. 1968, the Full-12 months Persevering with Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025. Via the Memorandum, the President “designate[d] as emergency requirements 16 appropriations,” however he didn’t concur with Congress’s emergency designations for “the remaining 11 appropriations.” The President executed the Memorandum at your suggestion.
As you recognize, Part 1110 of the persevering with decision expressly incorporates Part 6 of Public Legal guidelines 118–42 and 118–47. Part 6 offers the next:
SEC. 6. AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS. Every quantity designated on this Act by the Congress as an emergency requirement pursuant to part 251(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Balanced Finances and Emergency Deficit Management Act of 1985 shall be obtainable (or repurposed, rescinded, or transferred, if relevant) provided that the President subsequently so designates all such quantities and transmits such designations to the Congress.
This (or considerably comparable) language has been utilized in appropriations laws for many years, and it has at all times been interpreted to present the President a binary selection: He should concur with all or none of Congress’s emergency designations. Simply because the President doesn’t have a line-item veto, he doesn’t have the flexibility to select and select which emergency spending to designate. This interpretation is in line with congressional intent and is essentially the most logical and constant studying of the legislation. Certainly, Part 6 expressly refers to “each amount designated in this Act by the Congress as an emergency requirement” after which circumstances the provision of these funds on the President equally “designat[ing] all such amounts.”
Notably, this interpretation has been adopted by Administrations of each political events – together with throughout the first Trump Administration. The language in Part 6 doesn’t, and has by no means been interpreted to, present the President the flexibility to concur in some, however not all, of the emergency designations.
No matter our views on the Fiscal Accountability Act and accompanying implementation settlement, it’s incumbent on all of us to comply with the legislation as written – not as we want it to be. On this case, if the Administration disagreed with among the designations that stem from the “side deal,” it might have requested an anomaly previous to enactment of the persevering with decision, because it did in reference to quite a few different points. Additional, this new piecemeal method calls into the query the provision of the emergency funding within the persevering with decision that the President has concurred with, together with $8 billion in housing help.
We’re involved that sudden adjustments to OMB’s interpretation of long-standing statutory provisions might be disruptive to the appropriations course of and make it tougher for the Appropriations Committee to work in a collaborative trend with the Administration to advance priorities on behalf of the American folks. Collaboration will turn into much more difficult when the Committee is first knowledgeable of such developments by means of the press, slightly than notified by means of official channels, as was the case right here.
Thanks in your consideration to this essential matter.
Sincerely,
3.27.25 Letter re Emergency Designations
It’s about time the Senate, the Home, and the Courts begin to rein in a rogue president who believes the nation is his fiefdom. He isn’t a monarch and neither are we his topics to do as he pleases with us and the nation.
