[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E720-E721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 4
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speech of
HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO
of connecticut
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, there is another critical point I must make
about the rescissions proposal that the House is now considering. OMB's
defiance of the norms around review of special messages and the law
mandating disclosure of apportionments appears to be designed to evade
review of the rescission proposals by the Congress, Congress's
watchdog, and the public alike.
Unlike in the past, OMB has refused to make the apportionments for
the accounts at issue available to the Government Accountability Office
for their required review under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. In
its report to Congress on the June 3, 2025, special message proposing
these rescissions, the Government Accountability Office noted that for
``previous special messages, GAO has reviewed updated apportionment
data to ensure [OMB's] instructions were consistent with the special
message.'' But for these rescissions proposals, OMB flat out refused
``to provide GAO with updated apportionment data that would permit GAO
to conduct the same analysis for the President's special message of
June 3, 2025.''
This is unacceptable, and it is unlawful. In the FY 2022 and FY 2023
Consolidated Appropriations Acts, when I was chair of the
Appropriations Committee, Congress--on a bipartisan basis--required OMB
to post apportionments publicly. If OMB were obeying this law, then not
only would Congress and the GAO have critical information we needed to
consider the rescissions package before us, but the public would have
had the critical information they needed to share their opinions with
us about the impact of these cuts and any other funds OMB or these
agencies may be withholding in violation of the Impoundment Control
Act. Congress has required OMB to make this information public, and
once again, I urge OMB to comply with the law and do so--now.
And, yes, I know that OMB has made the wrongheaded argument to the
Committees that somehow apportionment decisions on congressionally
passed and duly enacted appropriations are both legally binding as well
as predecisional and deliberative, and that the requirement to post
such information is unconstitutional, but that is not so. OMB and
Director Vought continue to be deeply confused about the Constitution,
the rule of law, and foundational fiscal laws like the Antideficiency
Act and the Impoundment Control Act. The Constitution vested the power
of the purse in the Congress, not the President, and the Congress
assigned the President the responsibility to apportion appropriations
to protect Congress's power, not cede it to the Executive Branch. And
as the constitutional stewards of the power of the purse, Congress
can--through enacted laws--certainly require the apportionment
information to be published to the benefit of both the Congress and the
public, who deserve access to information about the use of taxpayer
dollars.
Finally, I must speak out against the pattern of unlawful impoundment
that is being led by OMB Director Russ Vought, who insists that there
is somehow a loophole in the Impoundment Control Act that permits the
Executive Branch to unilaterally cancel appropriations--that otherwise
expire under current law at the end of the fiscal year--by transmitting
a special message proposing rescissions late in the fiscal year and
withholding the amounts until they can no longer be used. But to quote
the late Justice Scalia, the Congress ``does not, one might say, hide
elephants in mouseholes.'' Indeed, unilateral actions by the Executive
Branch that would impound congressionally passed and duly enacted
appropriations is the very thing the Impoundment Control Act prohibits.
Director Vought refers to his unlawful maneuver as a ``pocket
rescission,'' which is just another name for unlawful impoundment. The
December 2018 Government Accountability Office legal opinion (B-
330330), requested jointly by then House Budget Committee Chairman
Steve Womack and Ranking Member John Yarmuth, is exactly right though
and confirms that the Impoundment Control Act bars this maneuver. The
Government Accountability Office stated unequivocally that ``[t]his
interpretation would, in effect, give the President power to amend or
to repeal previously enacted appropriations merely by calibrating the
timing of the submission of a special message'' and that ``[a]
withholding of this nature would be an aversion both to the
constitutional process for enacting federal law and to Congress's
constitutional power of the purse.'' As part of its analysis, the
Government Accountability Office reasons that ``[t]he plain language of
section 1012(b) provides that absent Congress's completion of action on
a rescission bill rescinding all or part of amounts proposed to be
rescinded within the prescribed 45-day period, such amounts must be
made available for obligation,'' which requires that the ``budget
authority must not be expired.'' And I remain in agreement with Senator
Lindsey Graham and Representative Hal Rogers, as the Senate Chairman
and House Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign
Operations, and Related Programs of the Appropriations Committees, when
they wrote in 2019 to President Trump that ``[w]e supported the budget
deal and did so in good faith. Preventing agencies from obligating such
large sums seems an abdication of this bipartisan agreement, and
Congress thus expressed strong opposition to this precise exercise last
year. Furthermore, the U.S. Government Accountability Office's December
2018 legal opinion concluded that the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act does not permit the withholding of funds
through their date of expiration and notes the President's
responsibility in ensuring prudent obligation of funds.''
Republicans and Democrats alike should reject this ploy for what it
is: a direct assault to Congress's Article I power. Allowing any
Administration to erase duly enacted funding through procedural delays
that amount to unlawful impoundment would destabilize the
appropriations process and corrode the separation of powers that the
Impoundment Control Act was enacted to defend.
I remind my colleagues that Congress alone holds the power of the
purse. It is right there
[[Page E721]]
in the Constitution. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 proclaims that
Congress, not the President, determines how the taxpayers' dollars are
spent. I urge my colleagues to reject this rule, which would
automatically adopt the rescissions package pursuant to the June 3,
2025, special message.
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