Congress’s Power Over Appropriations: Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
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Congress’s Power Over Appropriations:
Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
June 16, 2020
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
R46417
SUMMARY
Congress’s Power Over Appropriations:
Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
R46417
June 16, 2020
Sean M. Stiff
A body of constitutional and statutory provisions provides Congress with perhaps its most
Legislative Attorney
important legislative tool: the power to direct and control federal spending. Congress’s “power of
the purse” derives from two features of the Constitution: Congress’s enumerated legislative
powers, including the power to raise revenue and “pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” and the Appropriations Clause. This latter
provision states that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
Strictly speaking, the Appropriations Clause does not provide Congress a substantive legislative power but rather constrains
government action. But because Article I vests the legislative power of the United States in Congress, and Congress is
therefore the moving force in deciding when and on what terms to make public money available through an appropriation, the
Appropriations Clause is perhaps the most important piece in the framework establishing Congress’s supremacy over public
funds.
The Supreme Court has interpreted and applied the Appropriations Clause in relatively few cases. Still, these cases provide
important fence posts marking the extent of Congress’s power of the purse. The Court’s cases explain Congress’s discretion
to decide whether to pay, through an appropriation, asserted debts owed to third parties. The Court’s cases also establish that
executive branch officials may not exercise constitutional or statutory powers to compel, directly or indirectly, payments
from the Treasury absent an appropriation passed by Congress, and the Court’s cases also provide support for the proposition
that officials in the executive branch may not refuse to obligate funds when Congress has so mandated. Congress’s
appropriations function has its limits, though. For one, the Court has held that the Clause does not apply to funds until they
are deposited in the Treasury. The Constitution may also constrain Congress’s authority to control the other branches through
its appropriations power, either through particular constitutional provisions or because of the Constitution’s framework of
separate and coequal branches.
Congress has not rested on the text of the Appropriations Clause, alone, to guard funds meant for or contained in the
Treasury. Instead, Congress has chosen to enforce the Clause through a series of generally applicable fiscal control statutes,
some of which practitioners and the Courts commonly refer to by informal names. These statutes govern federal funds from
initial receipt through obligation and expenditure. Included among these statutes, the Miscellaneous Receipts Act requires
agencies to deposit “as soon as practicable” any “money for the Government” that they receive, so that agencies remain
dependent on Congress for budget authority. The Purpose Statute limits an agency’s use of appropriations to only those
“objects for which the appropriations were made,” and a body of decisions explains how an agency may determine the
express and implied authority that flows from a given appropriation. Congress also controls agency spending in how it
structures appropriations and then, through transfer and reprogramming authority, constrains the agency’s authority to
allocate funds between or within appropriations. The Antideficiency Act prohibits obligations or expenditures that exceed an
agency’s total budget authority or violate a cap, condition, or other limitation placed on the agency’s use of budget authority.
Finally, the Impoundment Control Act limits the executive branch’s ability to withhold budget authority from being available
for obligation or expenditure, ensuring that agencies implement the budget authority that Congress has conferred.
Besides these generally applicable fiscal control statutes, Congress controls Treasury funds through the text of annual,
supplemental, and continuing appropriations acts themselves or in other provisions of statute that Congress passes in
authorizing acts, apart from its periodic appropriations measures. Congress specifies the amount and objects of
appropriations, but as important, Congress places requirements, called conditions, limitations, or appropriation riders, on the
executive branch’s use of appropriations. Because it takes money to govern, Congress’s use of appropriation riders has the
potential to shape executive power in important ways. As a result, the executive branch scrutinizes limits placed on
appropriated funds and sometimes identifies riders that, according to the executive branch, are not controlling because the
rider allegedly exceeds Congress’s legislative power. An understanding of the executive branch “precedent” on appropriation
riders can help identify those likely to spark constitutional objections.
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Congress’s Power Over Appropriations: Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
Contents
Overview of Key Terms and Concepts ............................................................................................ 3
The Appropriations Clause: Historical Background ........................................................................ 7
Supreme Court Interpretation ........................................................................................................ 10
Effects on Private Parties .........................................................................................................11
Effects on Executive Power .................................................................................................... 13
The Appropriations Clause’s Limits ....................................................................................... 17
Congress’s Fiscal Control Statutes ................................................................................................ 21
The Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA) ................................................................................ 22
The Purpose Statute................................................................................................................. 27
Transfers and Reprogramming ................................................................................................ 32
The Antideficiency Act ........................................................................................................... 39
Limits on Obligations or Expenditures ............................................................................. 39
Apportionments and Reserves .......................................................................................... 43
Antideficiency Act Penalties ............................................................................................. 44
The Impoundment Control Act ............................................................................................... 46
Background ....................................................................................................................... 47
Rescissions ........................................................................................................................ 49
Deferrals............................................................................................................................ 52
Congressional Action and GAO Oversight ....................................................................... 54
Appropriation Riders ..................................................................................................................... 57
Considerations for Congress.......................................................................................................... 61
Appendixes
Appendix. Glossary ....................................................................................................................... 63
Contacts
Author Information........................................................................................................................ 64
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Congress’s Power Over Appropriations: Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
body of constitutional and statutory provisions provides Congress with perhaps its most
important legislative tool: the power to direct federal spending. Known as Congress’s
“power of the purse,”1 the power flows, in part, from those legislative authorities
enumerated in Article I, Section 8, including Congress’s authority under the Spending Clause to
raise revenue and “pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the
United States.”2 The Spending Clause power complements, and in some cases enhances,
Congress’s other enumerated legislative authorities.3 Congress has the authority to determine
what constitutes the “general Welfare” and then allocate public money to advance the cause it has
selected.4 Because the Constitution grants Congress the spending power, the document’s other
provisions provide the only legal constraints upon the exercise of that power.5
A
As broad as the Spending Clause power is, it perhaps is not the most important feature of
Congress’s power of the purse. One could devise a system of government in which the legislature
and the executive each exercise independent control over revenue and spending. At the time of
the Founding, England was not far removed from the days when the monarch claimed (though not
without controversy) the right to levy new taxes on his own initiative6 and had general freedom to
dispose of hereditary revenues.7 In continental Europe, monarchs had even more freedom to tax
and spend.8 The Spending Clause power, on its own, may not have necessarily foreclosed an
American President from asserting that the executive branch shares access to the federal purse
strings because of the powers otherwise vested in the Executive by the Constitution. The striking
feature of Congress’s power of the purse is not so much that Congress has access to the purse
1 See THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 359 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961) (“This power over the purse may,
in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate
representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and
salutary measure.”).
2 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 1 (“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,
to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts
and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”). This Clause is sometimes known as the Taxation Clause
or the General Welfare Clause.
3 United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936) (“[T]he power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys
for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.”). Butler marked a
turning point. For nearly 150 years, courts debated whether the Spending Clause permits only spending in aid of
another of Congress’s enumerated powers (the view perhaps most notably advanced by James Madison) or whether,
more broadly, the Spending Clause is itself legislative power to raise and spend to advance the general welfare (a view
prominently championed by Alexander Hamilton). Butler embraced the Hamiltonian view. See CRS Report R45323,
Federalism-Based Limitations on Congressional Power: An Overview, coordinated by Andrew Nolan and Kevin M.
Lewis, at 4–5.
4 See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 90 (1976) (per curiam) (“It is for Congress to decide which expenditures will
promote the general welfare.”).
5 Id. at 91 (“Any limitations upon the exercise of [the Spending Clause] power must be found elsewhere in the
Constitution.”).
6 See, e.g., 1 A COMPLETE COLLECTION OF STATE-TRIALS AND PROCEEDINGS FOR HIGH-TREASON, AND OTHER CRIMES
AND MISDEMEANOURS; FROM THE REIGN OF KING RICHARD II TO THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE II, 509–10 (Sollom Emyln
ed., 1742) (answer of the Judges to King Charles I) (opining that in times of peril the King had unreviewable authority
to levy “ship-money” taxes, including in inland counties where no prior monarch had sought ship-money, to finance the
building and manning of ships of war).
7 PAUL EINZIG, THE CONTROL OF THE PURSE: PROGRESS AND DECLINE OF PARLIAMENT’S FINANCIAL CONTROL 119 (1959)
(“Apart from a few exceptions, before 1688 Kings had reasonable freedom to spend their hereditary revenue without
effective interference by Parliament.”).
8 Hans Baade, Mandatory Appropriations of Public Funds: A Comparative Study, Part I, 60 VA. L. REV. 393, 422–23
(1974) (explaining that because the Estates General granted the kings of France permanent sources of revenue, the
House of Bourbon was able to rule for 175 years, from 1614 to 1789, without once convening the Estates).
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Congress’s Power Over Appropriations: Constitutional and Statutory Provisions
strings; it is that, as generally understood, Congress alone has access.9 Thus, the “bedrock powerof-the-purse provision” is arguably the Appropriations Clause rather than the Spending Clause.10
The Appropriations Clause specifies that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”11 By its terms, the Clause requires legislative
authorization before money may be withdrawn from the Treasury. This requirement greatly
augments Congress’s enumerated legislative powers.12 Congress can craft the terms of
appropriations or deny appropriations outright,13 subject only to the President’s limited
constitutional role in the lawmaking process.14
Using this broad legislative power, for more than two centuries Congress has appropriated funds
for use by the executive branch. In the process, Congress encountered various executive branch
practices that tended to undermine Congress’s control of the purse strings. Agencies augmented
their own budgets by retaining and using public money;15 obligated an appropriation beyond its
purpose;16 wrested greater funding from Congress by spending all that Congress had appropriated
previously or obligated for purposes not permitted by the appropriation;17 and refused to obligate
funds to advance policies with which a President disagreed.18 In response to each of these
practices, Congress adopted a series of generally applicable “fiscal control” statutes designed to
tighten its hold on the purse strings.
Congress has also exerted control over the purse strings through the terms of appropriations acts
themselves. When providing the executive branch with statutory authority to obligate Treasury
funds, Congress may attach a condition, limitation, or requirement—referred to in this report as a
rider19—to this grant. The appropriation rider either requires budget authority to be obligated in a
9 For prominent, contrasting views of the appropriations clause, compare Kate Stith, Congress’ Power of the Purse, 97
YALE L.J. 1343, 1356 (1988), (arguing that the Appropriations Clause institutes a “Principle of Appropriations Control”
by which “[a]ll expenditures from the public fisc must be made pursuant to a constitutional Appropriation made by
Law” (internal quotation marks omitted)), with George J. Sidak, The President’s Power of the Purse, 1989 DUKE L.J.
1162, 1194 (1989) (arguing that absent congressional appropriations “the President has an implied power to incur
claims against the Treasury to the extent minimally necessary to perform his duties and exercise his prerogatives under
article II”).
10 Zachary S. Price, Funding Restrictions and Separation of Powers, 71 VAND. L. REV. 357, 366 (2018).
11 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 7.
12 Cf. Sidak, supra note 9, at 1165 (noting that under a broad reading of the Appropriations Clause, which Sidak rejects,
one could claim that “because it takes money to make public goods, Congress is entitled to regulate” how the other
branches perform their separate constitutional functions).
13 Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 195 n.4 (1991) (“We have recognized that Congress’ power to allocate funds for
public purposes includes an ancillary power to ensure that those funds are properly applied to the prescribed use.”).
14 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 7, cls. 2–3 (describing the presentment process by which bills, “Order[s], Resolution[s], or
Vote[s]” passed by or concurred in by both houses of Congress are presented to the President for signature or
disapproval through veto and the two-thirds majority of both houses required to override a presidential veto).
15 See infra notes 199–200 and text.
16 See infra notes 241–247 and text.
17 See infra notes 339–342 and text.
18 See infra notes 405–410 and text.
19 The phrase appropriation rider does not have a particular statutory meaning, but the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) has defined the phrase to have one of two meanings. First, the phrase may be used to refer to “a
limitation or requirement in an appropriation act.” See GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, A GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN
THE FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS, GAO-05-734SP, at 14 (2005) [hereinafter GAO GLOSSARY] (“appropriation rider”)
(“Sometimes used to refer to . . . a limitation or requirement in an appropriation act.”); see also Maine Cmty. Health
Options v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 1308, 1317 (2020) (referring to limitations within appropriations acts as riders).
Second, the phrase may refer to “a provision that is not directly related to the appropriation to which it is attached.”
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particular way or for a particular purpose, or denies budget authority for particular uses.
Congress’s choice of appropriations rider may be as important in shaping interbranch relations as
the choice to provide funds in the first place. Congress’s riders may also become a source of
friction between the branches.20
Congress’s appropriations power creates a complex framework of legal rules governing the
federal government’s handling of public funds, from receipt through obligation and expenditure.
When Congress creates new programs, provides new budget authority, or conducts oversight of
existing programs and funding, this legal framework sets the extent of an agency’s authority over
public money. This report summarizes this critical legal framework. It begins by discussing key
terms and concepts, which are collected, along with other terms defined throughout this report, in
the report’s glossary Appendix. The report then briefly traces the Appropriations Clause from its
roots in the English legal tradition. Next, the report examines a selection of Supreme Court cases
that have examined this important provision. The report then discusses key portions of Congress’s
fiscal control statutes, including the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, the Purpose Statute, transfer
statutes and reprogramming authority, the Antideficiency Act, and the Impoundment Control
Act.21 The report concludes by examining the executive branch’s approach to assessing whether,
in the opinion of the executive branch, an appropriations rider exceeds Congress’s power and the
types of riders most likely to evoke an objection from the executive branch.
Overview of Key Terms and Concepts
Like many other areas of law, federal appropriations law has its special terminology. Budget
authority is a key concept. Budget authority is “the authority provided by Federal law to incur
financial obligations.”22 With budget authority, an officer or employee may incur a financial
obligation on behalf of the federal government.23 Congress provides budget authority in several
forms, from borrowing authority,24 to contract authority,25 to an appropriation.26 Budget authority
GAO GLOSSARY at 14. As noted above, this report uses the first meaning of the phrase and not its second meaning.
20 See infra notes 487–519 and text.
21 As explained above, this report focuses on appropriation law matters. For a discussion of the federal budget process
and, more specifically, the rules and practices for the consideration of appropriations measures, see CRS Report
R46240, Introduction to the Federal Budget Process, by James V. Saturno; and CRS Report R42388, The
Congressional Appropriations Process: An Introduction, coordinated by James V. Saturno.
22 2 U.S.C. § 622(2).
23 See Maine Cmty. Health Options, 140 S. Ct. at 1322 (“Budget authority is an agency’s power provided by Federal
law to incur financial obligations . . . . (internal quotation marks omitted)). Rather than provide budget authority to an
agency, Congress may itself “create an obligation directly by statute,” even if, in creating an obligation, Congress does
not also appropriate funds to satisfy the obligation. Id. at *7 (noting that Congress need not “provid[e] details about
how [an obligation] must be satisfied” in order for the text of a statute to create an obligation).
24 2 U.S.C. § 622(2)(A)(ii) (borrowing authority) (“authority granted to a Federal entity to borrow and obligate and
expend the borrowed funds, including through the issuance of promissory notes or other monetary credits”).
25 Id. § 622(2)(A)(iii) (contract authority) (“the making of funds available for obligation but not for expenditure”).
Contract authority, alone, only allows an agency to incur an obligation. Contract authority “requires a subsequent
appropriation or some other source of funds before the obligation incurred may actually be liquidated by the outlay of
monies.” Nat’l Ass’n of Reg’l Councils v. Costle, 564 F.2d 583, 586 (D.C. Cir. 1977).
26 Id. § 622(2)(A)(i). To be precise, an appropriation usually “is not a designation of any particular pile of coin or roll
of notes to be set aside and held for that purpose, and to be used for no other.” Hukill v. United States, 16 Ct. Cl. 562,
565 (1880). Rather, an appropriation is authority to obligate the federal government and draw sums from the Treasury
to satisfy the obligation. See Ains, Inc. v. United States, 56 Fed. Cl. 522, 537 (Ct. Cl. 2003). This report’s use of
colloquial references for appropriations, such as “appropriated funds,” should be understood in this light.
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is typically defined according to the purposes for which it is available, its amount (i.e., a definite
or indefinite sum), the time period in which it is obligated (i.e., available for obligation for one
year, multiple years, or without time period limitation), and whether the authority is current-year
or permanent authority.27 Budget authority may be classified as either discretionary spending28 or
mandatory spending.29
An appropriation is authority to incur obligations and draw money from the Treasury for a
particular purpose.30 Congress has by statute provided a rule of construction to determine whether
or not the language of a statute provides an appropriation: “A law may be construed to make an
appropriation out of the Treasury . . . only if the law specifically states that an appropriation is
made . . . .”31 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has interpreted Congress’s rule of
construction to not require specific use of the term appropriation or some form of that word for a
statute to function as an appropriation. Instead, GAO understands Congress to make an
appropriation whenever it provides “a specific direction to pay” and “a designation of the [f]unds
to be used” for the payment.32 When a statue includes a “mere authorization,” though, that is not
enough to constitute an appropriation.33 Courts have not implied or inferred appropriations from
statutes that lack an express reference to the making of an appropriation or a specific direction to
pay designated funds.34
As noted above, Congress’s grant of budget authority allows an individual to obligate the United
States. An obligation is a “definite commitment that creates a legal liability of the government for
the payment of goods and services ordered or received, or a legal duty on the part of the United
States that could mature into a legal liability” as a result of the action of a third party that is
beyond the United States’ control.35 In other words, the federal government incurs an obligation
when it takes the last action required of the federal government to create a legal liability.36
27 See GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 23.
28 See id. (“‘Mandatory spending,’ also known as ‘direct spending,’ refers to budget authority that is provided in laws
other than appropriation acts and the outlays that result from such budget authority.” Mandatory spending includes
entitlement authority and interest payments on public debt.).
29 See id. (“‘Discretionary spending’ refers to outlays from budget authority that is provided in and controlled by
appropriation acts.”).
30 GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, PRINCIPLES OF FEDERAL APPROPRIATIONS LAW, GAO-16-464SP, at ch. 2, p. 2–3
(4th ed., 2016) [hereinafter GAO REDBOOK], https://www.gao.gov/assets/680/675709.pdf (“[A]n appropriation is a law
authorizing the payment of funds from the Treasury.”); see also 2 U.S.C. § 622(2)(A)(i) (defining budget authority to
include “provisions of law that make funds available for obligation and expenditure (other than borrowing authority)”);
see also 31 U.S.C. § 701(2). The GAO Redbook is a well-respected treatise on federal appropriations law matters, and
courts occasionally cite the GAO Redbook when deciding cases. See, e.g., Me. Cmty. Health Options v. United States,
140 S. Ct. 1308, 1319 (2020) (citing the GAO Redbook for the proposition that the “authority to incur obligations by
itself is not sufficient to authorize payments from the Treasury”).
31 31 U.S.C. § 1301(d).
32 To the Honorable Mark O. Hatfield, United States Senate, B-214196, 63 Comp. Gen. 331, 335 (Apr. 30, 1984)
(concluding a statute provided a permanent appropriation of funds for military retirement and survivor benefit
programs even though the statute did not use the word “appropriation”).
33 Id.
34 See United States House of Representatives v. Burwell, 185 F. Supp. 3d 165, 169 (D.D.C. 2016) (“An appropriation
must be expressly stated; it cannot be inferred or implied.”).
35 GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 70.
36 For example, when an agency enters into a binding grant agreement, an obligation arises. See, e.g., Obligational
Practices of the Corporation for National and Community Service, B-300480, 2003 WL 1857402, at *3–4 (Comp. Gen.
Apr. 9, 2003).
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Generally speaking, congressional rules in the House of Representatives and the Senate establish
a presumption that Congress will follow a two-step process when it allows agencies to obligate
and spend funds for a given purpose, though Congress is free to take both of these general steps at
the same time.37 First, Congress might enact an authorization statute, which provides an agency
with “program authority,” an “authoriz[ation] [of] an appropriation,” or both.38 Second, Congress
might enact an appropriation for that program. Typically, Congress will provide only
appropriations that have already been authorized; House and Senate rules generally prohibit
appropriations for purposes that have not already been authorized.39 In both chambers, though,
these rules are not self-enforcing, meaning that they only make an offending appropriation subject
to a point of order. If no member raises a point of order, if the chamber does not sustain a point of
order that is raised, or if the chamber waives the application of the rules, they would not impede
the appropriation from being enacted into law and, later, obligated or expended by an agency.40
Congress commonly appropriates funds where an authorization for that appropriation has
lapsed,41 and agencies are free to obligate such appropriations.42 That said, Congress’s
authorization function does shape agency authority to obligate Treasury funds. An agency may
perform only those functions for which it has received statutory authority in some form.43
Beyond these key terms, Congress has enacted a statute requiring agencies to speak a common
language when addressing budget matters. The GAO is an arm of the legislative branch,44 headed
by the Comptroller General of the United States.45 Federal law tasks GAO with establishing
“standard terms and classifications for fiscal, budget, and program information of the
37 See, e.g., Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, Div. A, Title V, § 5001 (2020)
(authorizing the Coronavirus Relief Fund program and appropriating $150 billion for allocation to states, the District of
Columbia, territories, tribal governments, and local governments).
38 GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 15 (noting that the term authorization may describe “legislation enacting new
program authority” or “legislation authorizing an appropriation”).
39 See CONSTITUTION, JEFFERSON’S MANUAL, AND RULES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS, H.DOC. NO. 115-177, at Rule XXI, cl. 2(a)(1) (2019) (“An appropriation may not
be reported in a general appropriation bill, and may not be in order as an amendment thereto, for an expenditure not
previously authorized by law, except to continue appropriations for public works and objects that are already in
progress.”); STANDING RULES OF THE SENATE, S.DOC.NO. 113-18, at Rule XVI, cl. 1 (2013) (making subject to a point
of order an appropriation bill or amendment to an appropriation bill containing appropriations that are not “made to
carry out the provisions of some existing law, or treaty stipulation, or act or resolution passed by the Senate during that
session”).
40 Envirocare of Utah, Inc. v. United States, 44 Fed. Cl. 474, 483 (Ct. Cl. 1999) (“[T]hese rules are not self-enforcing.
Rather, they merely subject the offending provision to a point of order and do not affect the legislation’s validity if the
point of order is not raised (or is raised and not sustained) prior to enactment.”).
41 See, e.g., CONG. BUDGET OFFICE, EXPIRED AND EXPIRING AUTHORIZATIONS AND APPROPRIATIONS: FISCAL YEAR 2020,
at 1–2 (2020) (estimating that Congress appropriated $332 billion in FY2020 related to 1,046 authorizations of
appropriations that had expired “before the beginning of [FY] 2020”).
42 See Matter of Civil Rights Commission, B-246541, 71 Comp. Gen. 378, 380 (Apr. 29, 1992) (“There is no general
requirement, either constitutional or statutory, that an appropriation act be preceded by a specific authorization act. A
statute imposing substantive functions upon an agency which require funding for their performance provides the
agency with the authority necessary to perform the functions.”).
43 See Availability of Appropriations for Soc. Sec. Admin. Grant Programs Following the Expiration of Authorizations
of Appropriations, 2013 WL 11105737, at *5 (O.L.C. Feb. 4, 2013) (“[I]t is axiomatic that an agency must have legal
authority to perform its functions and, if it is to spend public monies, appropriated funds.”) (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
44 See Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 746 n.11 (1986) (“[T]he Comptroller General and the GAO are functionally
equivalent to congressional agents such as the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Technology Assessment, and
the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service.”).
45 31 U.S.C. § 702(b).
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Government” in consultation with relevant legislative and executive branch agencies.46 Before
GAO’s standard set of terms existed, agencies reported budget information to Congress using a
“maze of classification schemes and systems,” which made it difficult for Congress to understand
and compare, between agencies, the information it received.47 Agencies thus must use GAO’s
terms when “providing fiscal, budget, and program information to Congress.”48 GAO’s standard
terms appear in its publication, A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process.49
GAO’s service in this regard is only one piece of the prominent role that it plays in the
development of federal appropriations law. GAO investigates on Congress’s behalf “all matters
related to the receipt, disbursement, and use of public money.”50 Executive branch officials
charged with disbursing public funds may also request a decision from GAO on whether the law
allows a proposed expenditure.51 GAO’s investigations and decisions create an extensive body of
decisions discussing and applying federal appropriations law. The executive branch and the
federal courts often consider GAO’s views when deciding whether (for example) an obligation is
lawful.52 But neither the executive branch nor the federal judiciary considers GAO’s opinions to
be controlling. When GAO’s view on an appropriations law question clashes with that of the
executive branch, “historically, the executive branch has not considered itself bound by” GAO’s
opinions.53 And the federal courts have the “last word” when deciding the legal questions raised
by the cases that come before them.54
46 Id. § 1112(c)(1).
47 S. COMM. ON GOV’T OPERATIONS, FEDERAL ACT TO CONTROL EXPENDITURES AND ESTABLISH NATIONAL PRIORITIES,
S.REP. NO. 93-579, at 70–71 (1973).
48 31 U.S.C. § 1112(d).
49 See GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19.
50 31 U.S.C. § 712(1).
51 Id. § 3529(a).
52 See, e.g., U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1349–50 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh,
J.) (surveying GAO decisions on the Purpose Statute and the necessary expense doctrine); Applicability of the
Antideficiency Act to a Violation of a Condition or Internal Cap Within an Appropriation, 25 Op. O.L.C. 33, 52 (2001)
(considering GAO’s past interpretations of the Antideficiency Act).
53 Detail of Law Enforcement Agents to Congressional Committees, 12 Op. O.L.C. 184, 185 n.3 (1988) (further noting
that “[t]he Comptroller General is an officer of the legislative branch”). And in fact, GAO and the executive branch
have disagreed about aspects of federal appropriations law. See, e.g., infra notes 347–355 and text (discussing GAOexecutive branch disagreements over the scope of the Antideficiency Act); see also Executive Impoundment of
Appropriated Funds: Hearings Before the Subcomm. on Separation of Powers of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 92nd
Cong. 240 (1971) [hereinafter 1971 Impoundment Hearings] (testimony of W. Rehnquist, Assistant Attorney General,
Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice) (“Traditionally, there has been rivalry between the Comptroller
General and the Attorney General.”).
54 Scheduled Airlines Traffic Offenses, Inc. v. Dep’t of Def., 87 F.3d 1356, 1361 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
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Key Takeaways: Terms and Concepts
Congress grants budget authority by statute, permitting individuals to incur obligations on behalf of the
United States.
An appropriation is one type of budget authority and permits an agency to draw money from the Treasury.
GAO often issues decisions, opinions, and other publications that contribute to the development of
appropriations law. GAO’s views do not bind the courts or the executive branch, but GAO’s views are often
consulted by the other branches.
The Appropriations Clause: Historical Background
Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress “all legislative Powers” granted by the
Constitution.55 Many of Congress’s powers are set forth in the 18 clauses of Article I, Section 8,
such as the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce;56 “borrow Money on the credit of
the United States”;57 “establish Post Offices and post Roads”;58 and “declare War” and “raise and
support Armies.”59 Congress also has the authority “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution” not only its Article I, Section 8 powers, but also “all other
Powers vested by [the] Constitution in the Government of the United States” or any of its
departments or officers.60
The Appropriations Clause does not appear among these powers. Rather, the Appropriations
Clause appears in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, which contains restraints on the federal
government’s powers. Some of Section 9’s provisions are understood to apply to Congress alone,
either because the particular provision refers to Congress61 or because it concerns an action, such
as levying taxes, that, given other provisions of the Constitution, only Congress may perform.62
Other clauses of Section 9 “are expressed in general terms,”63 and thus apply to the federal
government as a whole. The Appropriations Clause is one such government-wide limitation. The
Clause provides: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law.”64
Thus, the Appropriations Clause’s fundamental rule is that Congress dictates the purposes for
which money in the Treasury may be expended.65 In adopting this fundamental rule, the Framers
55 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 1.
56 Id. art. I, § 8, cl. 3.
57 Id. cl. 2.
58 Id. cl. 7.
59 Id. cls. 11, 12.
60 Id. cl. 18.
61 See id. § 9, cl. 1 (“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper
to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to” 1808 “but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”).
62 Compare id. § 8, cl. 1 (“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes . . . .”), with id. § 9, cl. 5 (“No Tax
or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”).
63 Barron v. City of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243, 248 (1833).
64 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 7. This provision also states “and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and
Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” Id. This Statements-and-Account Clause is not
discussed in this report.
65 See, e.g., Office of Pers. Management v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 424 (1990) (“Our cases underscore the
straightforward and explicit command of the Appropriations Clause. It means simply that no money can be paid out of
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both continued and broke from the English tradition.66 On the one hand, with passage of the Bill
of Rights of 1689, Parliament asserted that it was supreme in directing the use of public funds.67
Parliament claimed that among its ancient “Rights and Liberties” was the rule “that Levying
Money for or to the Use of the Crowne by preten[s]e of Prerogative without Grant of Parl[i]ament
for longer time or in other manner then the same is or shall be granted is Illegal.”68 In other
words, Parliament asserted that any use of funds by the monarch that lacked Parliament’s
authorization was unlawful. The Framers recognized this was a key development in England’s
centuries-long progress toward representative government.69
On the other hand, even into the 18th century, the monarch maintained a measure of financial
independence from Parliament—though far less than that claimed by monarchs of prior
centuries.70 William Blackstone, an English jurist who served as a leading authority on English
law for the Founding generation,71 divided the Crown’s “fiscal prerogatives” in two.72 The King’s
“ordinary” revenue included ancient rights and property, such as the royal demesne (i.e., land held
by the crown and the revenues from it) that once generated significant revenue but, by the
Founding, had “sunk almost to nothing.”73 More significantly, the Crown could draw on
“extraordinary” revenue. Though Parliament granted the Crown this latter revenue stream,
Parliament’s grants could be “perpetual,”74 lasting for the Monarch’s entire reign.75 As a legal
the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress.” (quotation marks omitted)); United States v.
Maccollom, 426 U.S. 317, 321 (1976) (plurality opinion) (“The established rule is that the expenditure of public funds
is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that public funds may be expended unless prohibited by Congress.”).
66 When interpreting constitutional provisions, courts and scholars often consider the English legal tradition at the time
of the Founding. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 593 (2008) (examining the English legal
tradition); Julian Davis Mortenson, Article II Vests the Executive Power, Not the Royal Prerogative, 119 COLUM. L.
REV. 1169, 1191 (2019) (noting that “the political imaginary” of “England’s multicentury wobble toward parliamentary
supremacy” “was deeply entrenched in the Founders’ minds, by way of schoolrooms, the political press, and widely
published histories from authors across the political spectrum.”).
67 The Bill of Rights formalized King William III and Queen Mary II’s joint accession to the throne, formerly Prince
and Princess of Orange. See 1 W. 3 & M. 2, c.2 (1688) (dated under the Old Style calendar), reprinted in 6 STATUTES
OF THE REALM 143 (Alex Luders et al., eds., 1963) (declaring Parliament’s resolve that “William and Mary Prince and
Princess of Orange be and be declared King and Queene of England France and Ireland” and the dominions thereof).
The Act mirrored the Declaration of Right, a document that members of the Convention Parliament presented, along
with the crown, to the then-Prince and Princess of Orange in February 1689. See FREDERIC W. MAITLAND, THE
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND 281–82 (1919).
68 1 Will. 3 & Mary 2, c.2 (1688), reprinted in 6 STATUTES OF THE REALM, supra note 67, at 142–43. Parliament
charged King James II with violating this ancient right. Id.
69 See THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 359 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961) (describing control of the “purse”
as “that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble
representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as
it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government”).
70 See JOSH CHAFETZ, CONGRESS’S CONSTITUTION: LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS 46 (2017)
(“Under the Tudors, Parliament was far more deferential to royal authority over expenditures—in [Frederic] Maitland’s
words, it hardly dared to meddle with such matters.” (quotation marks omitted)).
71 Alden v. Me., 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999) (calling Blackstone “the preeminent authority on English law for the
founding generation”).
72 I WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES 271 (1765).
73 Id. at 296.
74 Id. at 297–98.
75 E.g., 1 Ann. 1, c.1 (1702), reprinted in 8 STATUTES OF THE REALM 3, supra note 67 (providing Queen Anne
“Subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage” and other sources of revenue “from and after” the first day of her reign “during
Her Majesties Life”).
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matter, Parliament may have controlled purse strings, but as a practical matter, English monarchs
enjoyed significant financial independence from Parliament.76
The Appropriations Clause also paralleled provisions of state constitutions that existed at the time
of the Constitutional Convention. Nearly all of the states eventually heeded the Second
Continental Congress’s May 1776 call to “adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the
representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in
particular, and America in general” by adopting new state constitutions.77 Rhode Island and
Connecticut “retained their colonial charters with only minor modifications as their fundamental
law into the nineteenth century.”78 Most state constitutions in effect in 1789 expressly assigned
the appropriations power to the state legislature.79 Other state constitutions of the period did not
expressly assign an appropriations function to the legislature.80 But no state constitution expressly
allowed a person to draw money from the state treasury without legislative authorization. The
framers of certain state constitutions went further still by redirecting to the state treasury funds
that had been payable to the executive under the colonial system.81 Thus, when the Framers
arrived in Philadelphia in the late spring and early summer of 1787, the general rule in the states
was that control over the expenditure of public funds should rest with the legislature.82
76 See EINZIG, supra note 7, at 119. Indeed, before the Founding, historians contend that the Hanoverian kings used
these revenues to influence members of Parliament. Perversely, then, Parliament’s grants of revenue not only lessened
the Monarch’s reliance on Parliament, the grants became a tool to control Parliament. See id. at 123–26 (concluding
that “there can be little doubt that the general picture of the degree of political corruption during the 18th century was
really substantially as high as contemporary claimed it to be”).
77 1 WORKS OF JOHN ADAMS 217 (Charles Francis Adams, ed., 1856).
78 G. ALAN TARR, UNDERSTANDING STATES CONSTITUTIONS 60 (1998). Connecticut adopted its first Constitution in
1818. See CONN. CONST. of 1818. Rhode Island followed suit in 1842. See R.I. CONST. of 1842.
79 See DEL. CONST. of 1776, art. VII (providing for the appointment of a “chief magistrate” empowered to “draw for
such sums of money as shall be appropriated by the general assembly, and be held accountable to them for the same”);
MD. CONST. OR FORM OF GOV’T of 1776, at XX–XXI (specifying that the House of Delegates would originate all
“money bills,” a term defined to include all bills “appropriating money in the treasury” or otherwise providing supplies
“for the support of the government”); MASS. CONST. of 1780, ch. 2, § 1, art. XI (“(No moneys shall be issued out of the
treasury of this Commonwealth, and disposed of . . . but by warrant, under the hand of the Governour for the time
being, with the advice and consent of the council, for the necessary defen[s]e and support of the Commonwealth; and
for the protection and preservation the inhabitants thereof, agreeably to the act and resolves of” Massachusetts’s state
legislature, “the General Court”); N.H. CONST. of 1783, pt. 2, reprinted in THE PERPETUAL LAWS OF THE STATE OF NEWHAMPSHIRE 16 (John Melcher, ed., 1789) (substantially similar language to that of Massachusetts Constitution of
1780); N.C. CONST. of 1776, § 19 (“That the governor for the time being, shall have the power to draw for and apply
such sums of money as shall be voted by the general assembly for the contingencies of government, and be accountable
to them for the same”); PA. CONST. of 1776, § 20 (providing that president and the president’s council “may draw upon
the treasury for such sums as shall be appropriated by the house”); S.C. CONST. of 1778, art. XVI (directing that no
“money be drawn out of the public treasury but by the legislative authority of the state”).
80 See GA. CONST. of 1777; NJ. CONST. of 1776; N.Y. CONST. of 1777; VA. CONST. of 1776. That said, some of these
state constitutions dealt with the issue tangentially, expressly referencing the procedure for passing “money bills.” E.g.,
N.J. CONST. of 1776, VI; Va. CONST. of 1776, VIII.
81 See MD. CONST. OR FORM OF GOV’T of 1776, at LVIII (“[A]ll penalties and forfeitures, heretofore going to the King
or proprietary, shall go to the State—save only such, as the General Assembly may abolish or otherwise provide for.”);
PA. CONST. of 1776, § 33 (“All fees, licence money, fines and forfeitures heretofore granted, or paid to the governor, or
his deputies for the support of government shall hereafter be paid to the public treasury, unless altered or abolished by
the future legislature.”); VA. CONST. of 1776, XX (“All escheats, penalties, and forfeitures heretofore going to the King,
shall go to the Commonwealth, save only such as the Legislature may abolish, or otherwise provide for.”).
82 See Gerhard Casper, Appropriations of Power, 13 UALR. L.J. 1, 4–8 (1990) (explaining that “during the founding
period money matters were primarily thought of as a legislative prerogative”).
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Perhaps for this reason, the Appropriations Clause attracted little debate at the Constitutional
Convention. When deliberating over the Clause, the Framers debated only whether the Senate—
then conceived as a body whose members the states would elect—would have the power to
originate or amend appropriation bills.83 The first proposal mentioning Congress’s appropriations
function stated that “all Bills for raising or appropriating money . . . shall originate in the first
Branch of the Legislature, and shall not be altered or amended by the second Branch.”84 This first
proposal continued: “and that no money shall be drawn from the public Treasury but in pursuance
of appropriations to be originated in the first Branch.”85 Eventually, the delegates removed
limitations on Senate origination and amendment of appropriations bills and settled on the text of
the current Clause.86
One particular instance of Congress’s appropriations power did draw debate. Early on, the
Framers proposed assigning to Congress the power to raise armies.87 Some delegates feared large
standing armies in times of peace, and thus proposed ways to constrain the size of a peacetime
army.88 Other delegates noted that “preparations for war are generally made in peace,” and urged
colleagues to avoid unduly limiting Congress’s ability to prepare for war during times of peace.89
The delegates eventually agreed that Congress could not make an appropriation for the Army
lasting longer than two years.90 The Constitution thus provides that Congress may “raise and
support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two
Years.”91 Alexander Hamilton explained that this provision, commonly referred to as the Army
Clause, would require Congress “to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on
foot” at least once every two years, “come to a new resolution on the point,” and “declare their
sense of the matter by a formal vote in the face of their constituents.”92 Thus, Congress could not
abdicate to the President the decision of whether to maintain armies.93
Supreme Court Interpretation
The Supreme Court has construed the Appropriations Clause in relatively few cases. Still, these
cases set forth important principles governing the Clause’s application, marking the potential
power of the Appropriations Clause as well as its potential limits. The Court’s cases, a selection
83 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 544–45 (Max Farrand ed., 1911).
84 Id. at 524. In the draft text quoted above, the Framers used the terms “first Branch” and “second Branch” to refer to
the House and Senate, respectively. Id.
85 Id.
86 2 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra note 83, at 610 & n.2, 618–19.
87 E.g., 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, supra note 83, at 143.
88 E.g., id. at 329 (Eldridge Gerry) (proposing a numerical cap on troop strength in times of peace).
89 Id. at 330 (Jonathan Dayton).
90 See id. at 508–09. Criticism remained of this proposal during the Convention. See id. at 509 (Eldridge Gerry)
(reiterating his call for a numerical cap on troop strength, urging a one-year limitation on Army appropriations, and
criticizing the two-year proposal as “dangerous to liberty”). During the ratification debates that followed the
Convention’s close, opponents of ratification pointed to the Army Clause as one of its alleged flaws. See, e.g., Essays
by a Farmer (1788), reprinted in 5 THE COMPLETE ANTI-FEDERALIST 1.42–1.43 (Herbert Storing ed., 1981)
(cataloguing features of the English system of government that guarded against “the evils and dangers” of a peacetime
army and arguing the then-proposed U.S. Constitution lacked similar protections) (“In England, the appropriation of
money for the support of their army must be from year to year; in America it may be for double the period.”).
91 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 12.
92 THE FEDERALIST NO. 26, at 171 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961).
93 Id.
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of which are discussed below, provide guidance on how the Appropriations Clause affects the
rights of private parties as against the federal government; how the Clause limits the powers of
the executive branch; and the express and implied limits on Congress’s ability to control the other
branches using its appropriations power.
Effects on Private Parties
The Supreme Court has most often construed the Appropriations Clause in the context of claims
against the government to compel payment of alleged debts. In its “very first Appropriations
Clause decision,”94 Reeside v. Walker,95 the Court held that a private party may force the federal
government to pay an asserted debt or obligation only when Congress has appropriated funds to
pay the debt. There, the widow of a government contractor brought a claim for “set-off” and
received a jury verdict stating that the federal government owed her deceased husband roughly
$190,000.96 Having obtained what she thought to be a judgment against the United States, the
widow petitioned for a writ of mandamus in federal court, asserting that the Secretary of the
Treasury had a clear legal duty to pay the debt.97 Lower courts denied her request.
The Court affirmed, deciding that the widow had prematurely brought her petition. The jury’s
verdict had not led to a final judgment, and even if it had, the judgment would “merely lay[] the
foundation for” further proceedings to collect on the judgment.98 The Court then noted roadblocks
to recovery that would arise even with a final judgment.99 “[O]f peculiar importance” to the
Court, no statute authorized the Secretary to pay the deceased husband’s debt.100 As a result, not
only would the widow be unable to identify a clear legal duty on the government’s part to pay her
deceased husband’s debt, the petition sought relief prohibited by the Appropriations Clause. The
Court explained:
No officer, however high, not even the President, much less a Secretary of the Treasury or
Treasurer, is empowered to pay debts of the United States generally, when presented to
them. If, therefore, the petition in this case was allowed so far as to order the verdict against
the United States to be entered on the books of the Treasury Department, the plaintiff would
be as far from having a claim on the Secretary or Treasurer to pay it as now. The difficulty
in the way is the want of any appropriation by Congress to pay this claim. It is a wellknown constitutional provision, that no money can be taken or drawn from the Treasury
except under an appropriation by Congress.
However much money may be in the Treasury at any one time, not a dollar of it can be
used in the payment of any thing not thus previously sanctioned. Any other course would
give to the fiscal officers a most dangerous discretion.101
94 Keepseagle v. Perdue, 856 F.3d 1039, 1073 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (Brown, J., dissenting).
95 52 U.S. 272 (1850).
96 Id. at 273–74.
97 Id. at 274.
98 Id. at 288–89 (“The petitioner and her husband have neglected to pursue the case . . . to a final judgment, and hence
have offered no evidence of one, on the verdict of indebtedness to Reeside by the United States.”).
99 Id. at 289 (offering this added analysis to “save future expense and litigation in this case”); see also Office of Pers.
Management v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 425 (1990) (characterizing the Court’s discussion in Reeside concerning the
Appropriations Clause as an “alternative ground for decision”).
100 Id. at 291.
101 Id.
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Federal courts have since reaffirmed Reeside’s description of the Appropriations Clause’s
reach.102
In Hart v. United States,103 the Court set forth a corollary of the principle in Reeside: Congress
may expressly prohibit use of an appropriation to pay an obligation asserted by a private party.104
Hart received a pardon in November 1865 for having been “in active sympathy” with the
Confederate States of America during the Civil War.105 He claimed payment for (among other
things) “flour, corn, and forage” he had provided the federal government before secession.106 But
under an 1867 joint resolution of Congress, it was unlawful for any officer or employee to pay
any “account, claim, or demand” held by a person who supported secession, even if the person’s
claim related to goods or services provided before secession.107 The Court affirmed a decision
denying Hart’s claim, explaining that “[i]t was entirely within the competency of Congress to
declare that the claims mentioned in the joint resolution should not be paid till the further order of
Congress,” and this was true even though Hart had received a full pardon from President Andrew
Johnson.108
As Reeside instructs, a private party seeking payment from the United States must identify an
appropriation “made by law” that permits the payment, as the officers and employees of the
federal government lack general authority to pay debts “when presented to them.” And as in Hart,
Congress may specify that the appropriations it does make may not be obligated or expended to
pay specified debts.109 This congressional discretion could appear harsh, if and when Congress
refuses to pay a particular claim.110 But commentators on the Constitution argued that by
102 See Richmond, 496 U.S. at 424–25; U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1347 (D.C.
Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh, J.). However, the practical effect of this holding is limited. Through enactment of the
“Judgment Fund,” Congress has permanently appropriated sums to pay “final judgments, awards, compromise
settlements, and interest and costs” where (among other things) “payment is not otherwise provided for.” 31 U.S.C.
§ 1304(a).
103 118 U.S. 62 (1886).
104 The Fifth Amendment provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just
compensation.” U.S. CONST., amend. V. In effect, the Fifth Amendment imposes a payment obligation, that of “just
compensation,” if the federal government “take[s]” private property for public use. See First English Evangelical
Lutheran Church v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 315 (1987) (“government action that works a taking of property
rights necessarily implicates the constitutional obligation to pay just compensation” (quotation marks omitted)). For a
discussion on how this provision may intersect with the Appropriations Clause, see Charles Tiefer, Controlling Federal
Agencies by Claims on Their Appropriations? The Takings Bill and the Power of the Purse, 13 YALE J. ON REG. 501,
505 (1996).
105 Hart, 118 U.S. at 64–65.
106 Id.
107 Id. at 65.
108 Id. at 67. The Court reached this decision while noting that Congress had separately allowed payments of
obligations to mail carriers in certain states, exempting such carriers from the 1867 joint resolution’s payment
prohibition. See id.
109 Reeside and Hart do not appear to involve an attempt by Congress to repeal an existing obligation, and this report
does not address the constitutional limitations that might apply to Congress’s power to void existing obligations. See,
e.g., Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt, 543 U.S. 631, 646 (2005) (“A statute that retroactively repudiates the Government’s
contractual obligation may violate the Constitution.”); United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U.S. 839, 876 (1996)
(plurality) (noting that the federal government has “some capacity to make agreements binding [on] future Congresses”
but that the “extent of that capacity . . . remains somewhat obscure”). Moreover, the failure to appropriate sums to pay
an obligation does not rescind that obligation. See, e.g., Maine Cmty. Health Options, 140 S. Ct. at 1321 (explaining
that appropriations that are insufficient to satisfy an obligation do “not pay the Government’s debts, nor cancel its
obligations” (quotation marks omitted)).
110 In practice, even prior the Judgment Fund’s creation in 1956, see supra note 102 (discussing the Judgment Fund),
the federal government was a fairly dependable judgment debtor. “A study concluded in 1933 found only 15 instances
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mandating Congress’s participation in the claims-payment process, the Appropriations Clause
protects the public funds. If Congress did not have to authorize the payment of claims against the
United States, there would be “an opportunity for collusion and corruption in the management of
suits between the claimant[] and the officers of the government.”111 Congress’s role in approving
claims guards against collusion and, more generally, restrains executive action. “[T]he known
fact, that the subject must pass in review before congress, induces a caution and integrity in
making and substantiating claims, which would in a great measure be done away, if the claim
were subject to no restraint, and no revision.”112
Key Takeaways: The Appropriations Clause’s Effects on Private Parties
To recover money from the federal government, a private party must, among other things, identify an
appropriation that is available to satisfy the judgment.
Generally, the Appropriations Clause does not require Congress to appropriate funds to pay an obligation
asserted by a private party.
Effects on Executive Power
The Supreme Court has also applied the Appropriations Clause to limit the authority of executive
branch officers and employees exercising either constitutional or statutory powers. In Knote v.
United States,113 the Court held that another branch’s exercise of constitutional powers cannot
compel payment of public funds unless an appropriation separately permitted the payment.
During the Civil War, the federal government seized and sold Knote’s personal property because
he had committed treason by supporting secession.114 The government deposited the proceeds of
this sale in the Treasury.115 Later, President Andrew Johnson granted Knote a “full pardon and
amnesty” that restored Knote to “all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and
the laws made in pursuance thereof.”116 Knote argued that because seizure of his property was
one of the consequences of his treason, an offense for which he had received a full pardon, he was
entitled to the proceeds of the sale of his property.117
The Court rejected Knote’s claim. The Court began by noting that President Johnson’s pardon did
not, by its terms, call for a return of Knote’s forfeited property.118 Even if the President had
framed his pardon in that way, the President would lack the power to require return of the
property. The pardon power119 does not depend on congressional authorization. The President
in 70 years when Congress had refused to pay a judgment.” Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U.S. 530, 570 (1962).
111 JOSEPH STORY, 3 COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, § 1343 (1833); see also Cincinnati
Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U.S. 308, 321 (1937) (noting that the Appropriations Clause was “intended as a
restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive department”).
112 Id.
113 95 U.S. 149 (1877).
114 Id. at 149.
115 Id.
116 Id. at 152.
117 See id. at 153.
118 Id.
119 See U.S. CONST. art II, § 2, cl. 1 (conferring on the President the “Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for
Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment”).
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may grant a pardon without a statute authorizing one, and Congress cannot prohibit the President
from granting a pardon in any case or class of cases.120 But the government had deposited the
proceeds from the sale of Knote’s property in the Treasury. This deposit triggered the
Appropriations Clause. “However large . . . may be the power of pardon possessed by the
President,” the Court explained, “there is this limit to it, as there is to all his powers[]—it cannot
touch moneys in the treasury of the United States, except [as] expressly authorized by act of
Congress.”121
The Court likewise relied on the Appropriations Clause over a century later when holding, in
Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond,122 that when no appropriation supports a payment,
the executive branch may not bind the government to make the payment based on how an agency
carries out a statutory program. In 1986, Navy Department personnel advised Richmond, a retired
Navy welder, that he could pursue certain part-time work without sacrificing his right under
federal law to disability benefits. The Navy based its advice on an outdated version of statutory
eligibility rules, which in 1982 Congress modified. In fact, the retiree’s part-time work made him
ineligible under the post-1982 eligibility rules, and the federal government eventually denied him
benefits.123 Richmond challenged the denial of benefits, claiming that the doctrine of equitable
estoppel prevented the government from now arguing that statute made Richmond ineligible for
benefits. The government had earlier made the opposite representation (i.e., that Richmond would
remain eligible for benefits), and Richmond had relied on that earlier advice when accepting the
part-time work that made him ineligible for benefits.124
Equitable estoppel may apply in litigation between private parties, limiting the arguments
available to one party to avoid unfairness to that party’s adversary.125 When the Supreme Court
considered Richmond’s case, though, lower courts were divided over whether and when equitable
estoppel applied against the government.126 Though it refused to rule out estoppel in all cases
involving the federal government,127 the Court rejected the doctrine’s application to the United
States in cases involving monetary claims against the government.128 According to the Court, this
ruling was necessary given the Appropriations Clause. “Any exercise of a power granted by the
Constitution to one of the other Branches of Government is limited by a valid reservation of
congressional control over funds in the Treasury.”129 Just as the President may not obligate funds
120 See Schick v. Reed, 419 U.S. 256, 266 (1974) (reasoning that the President’s pardon power “flows from the
Constitution alone, not from any legislative enactments, and . . . it cannot be modified, abridged, or diminished by the
Congress”).
121 Knote, 95 U.S at 154. Though it appeared to avoid resolving the issue, the Court has suggested that Knote’s
principle applies “regardless of whether the Government's ownership of those funds is disputed,” such that an employee
of the United States would need an appropriation to return funds erroneously deposited into the Treasury. Republic
Nat’l Bank v. United States, 506 U.S. 80, 94 (1992) (Rehnquist, C.J.) (opinion of the Court in relevant part).
122 496 U.S. 414 (1990).
123 Id. at 417–19.
124 Id. at 419.
125 See, e.g., Kosakow v. New Rochelle Radiology Assocs., P.C., 274 F.3d 706, 725 (2d Cir. 2001) (“The doctrine of
equitable estoppel is properly invoked where the enforcement of the rights of one party would work an injustice upon
the other party due to the latter’s justifiable reliance upon the former’s words or conduct.”).
126 See Richmond, 496 U.S. at 422.
127 Id. at 423–24.
128 See id. at 434 (“Whether there are any extreme circumstances that might support estoppel in a case not involving
payment from the Treasury is a matter we need not address. As for monetary claims, it is enough to say that this Court
has never upheld an assertion of estoppel against the Government by a claimant seeking public funds.”).
129 Id. at 425.
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without an appropriation, “judicial use of the equitable doctrine of estoppel cannot grant [a party]
a money remedy that Congress has not authorized.”130
The Court justified its decision by reference to the Appropriations Clause’s fundamental purpose,
to “assure that public funds will be spent according to the letter of the difficult judgments reached
by Congress as to the common good,” a judgment reflected in a statute that provides an
appropriation.131 If the Court applied estoppel, executive branch officials charged with
administering government programs could effectively overrule Congress’s spending decisions by
administering programs as if a different set of rules applied.132 According to the Court, the
Appropriations Clause foreclosed that result.
Another case bears mentioning. Though it is not a construction of the Appropriations Clause,
Kendall v. United States133 is authority with implications for Congress’s appropriations function.
In Kendall, the Court recognized Congress’s ability to impose, by statute, mandatory functions on
subordinate executive branch officials. There, the Postmaster General credited a contractor’s
account for transporting the mail. After a change in Post Office leadership, though, a new
Postmaster General withdrew the credits.134 The contractor petitioned Congress for relief. Rather
than itself determine credits owed, Congress empowered the Solicitor of the Treasury to decide
the issue, and Congress directed the Postmaster General to credit mail contractors with whatever
sum the solicitor decided was due.135 After the Solicitor made his finding, the Postmaster General
refused to give the full credit found, arguing in the lawsuit that followed that the courts could not
control how the President directed execution of the laws.136
Drawing a distinction between the President on the one hand, and the President’s subordinates on
the other, the Court rejected the Postmaster General’s view. “[A]s far as his powers are derived
from the constitution, [t]he [President] is beyond the reach of any other department, except in the
mode prescribed by the constitution through the impeaching power.”137 But this did not mean that
“every officer in every branch of th[e executive] department is under the exclusive direction of
the President.”138 Rather, Congress may impose statutory duties on subordinate officers, leaving
no discretion over how the agent performs the duty,139 and the federal courts could compel the
officer to perform such duties.140 “The terms of the submission” of the disputed claim to the
130 Id. at 426.
131 Id. at 427–28.
132 See id. at 428.
133 37 U.S. 524 (1838).
134 Id. at 608.
135 Id. at 608–09.
136 Id. at 612–13 (“It was urged at the bar, that the postmaster general was alone subject to the direction and control of
the President, with respect to the execution of the duty imposed upon him by this law, and this right of the President is
claimed, as growing out of the obligation imposed upon him by the constitution, to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed.”).
137 Id. at 610.
138 Id.
139 Id. at 613 (“The act required by the law to be done by the postmaster general is simply to credit the relators with the
full amount of the award of the solicitor. This is a precise, definite act, purely ministerial; and about which the
postmaster general had no discretion whatever.”).
140 Id. at 614, 623–24.
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solicitor “was a matter resting entirely in the discretion of congress,” and the Postmaster General
could not “control Congress, or the solicitor, in that affair.”141
Kendall rejected the contention that a subordinate officer, such as the Postmaster General, “was
alone subject to the direction and control of the President, with respect to the execution of the
duty imposed upon him by this law.”142 Under Kendall’s reasoning, Congress may craft a statute
that requires subordinate executive officers to obligate funds, or to obligate funds in a particular
way.143 This authority is important, because the executive branch can just as easily frustrate
Congress’s power of the purse by refusing to obligate funds (at all, or in the manner directed by
Congress) as by obligating funds for a purpose not permitted by law. Writing in 1969, William
Rehnquist, then-Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel and future Chief
Justice of the United States, pointed to Kendall as “authority against the asserted Presidential
power” to “refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress for a particular purpose” where the
statute making the appropriation “by its terms sought to require the expenditure.”144 Though other
officials within the Nixon Administration soon rejected this view,145 Rehnquist found it
“extremely difficult to formulate a constitutional theory to justify a refusal by the President to
comply with the Congressional directive to spend,” at least when the refusal did not concern
foreign affairs or national defense.146 Later cases endorse similar reasoning.147
Key Takeaways: The Appropriations Clause’s Effects on Executive Power
The Supreme Court has held that an executive branch officer or employee may not obligate Treasury funds
in the absence of an appropriation, including in a case involving the President’s exercise of the pardon power.
Supreme Court case law provides support for the proposition that Congress may implement spending
decisions by drafting statutes to require the obligation or expenditure of funds by subordinate executive
officers or employees.
141 Id. at 611.
142 Id. at 612–13.
143 See, e.g., Pennsylvania v. Lynn, 501 F.2d 848, 854 n. 21(D.C. Cir. 1974) (stating that Congress could set conditions
in statute limiting the executive branch’s discretion over expenditure of appropriated sums and that “[a] contention to
the contrary would not be likely of a serious reception” (citing Kendall, 37 U.S. 524); Constitutional Limitations on
Fed. Gov’t Participation in Binding Arbitration, 19 Op. O.L.C. 208, 224 (1995) (“Kendall stands for the proposition
that the executive must comply with the terms of valid statutes and that if a statute requires the executive to submit to
binding arbitration, the executive must do so.”); The President’s Veto Power, 12 U.S. Op. Off. Legal Counsel 128, 167
(1988) (noting that Kendall “can be read to support the proposition that the executive’s duty faithfully to execute the
laws requires it to spend funds at the direction of Congress”); cf. Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 193 (1993) (“[A]n
agency is not free simply to disregard statutory responsibilities: Congress may always circumscribe agency discretion
to allocate resources by putting restrictions in the operative statutes.”).
144 Memorandum for the Honorable Edward L. Morgan, Deputy Counsel to the President (Dec. 19, 1969), reprinted in
1971 Impoundment Hearings, note 53 at 283.
145 Impoundment of Appropriated Funds by the President, Joint Hearings Before the Ad Hoc Subcomm. on
Impoundments of Funds of the S. Comm. on Gov’t Ops. and the Subcomm. on Separation of Powers of the S. Comm. on
the Judiciary, 93d Cong. 380 (1973) [hereinafter 1973 Impoundment Hearings] (testimony of J. Sneed, Deputy
Attorney General, Department of Justice).
146 Memorandum for Edward L. Morgan, reprinted in 1971 Impoundment Hearings, supra note 53, at 283.
147 See, e.g., In re Aiken Cty., 725 F.3d 255, 260 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (granting writ of mandamus against the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission requiring it to “continue with the legally mandated licensing process” for opening a nuclear
waste repository at Yucca Mountain) (stating that “where previously appropriated money is available for an agency to
perform a statutorily mandated activity” as to which the President has not raised a constitutional objection, “we see no
basis for a court to excuse the agency from that statutory mandate”) (Kavanaugh, J.).
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The Appropriations Clause’s Limits
Despite the Supreme Court’s robust reading of the Appropriations Clause, at least three features
of the Court’s case law bear mentioning.148 First, the Court has held that the Clause does not
apply to money held by the government outside the Treasury. In United States v. Osborn, a federal
district court ordered forfeited to the United States bonds and mortgages held by Osborn,
eventually netting $20,000 in proceeds.149 None of these funds were paid into the Treasury. Some
funds sat in the district court’s registry.150 After receiving a full pardon and amnesty, Osborn
petitioned the district court for an order restoring the proceeds of his forfeited property,151 and the
Supreme Court held that this relief could be granted. Forfeiture was a penalty attached to
Osborn’s offense, but the President pardoned that offense, and the “penalty . . . must fall with the
pardon of the offence itself.”152 The Court rejected the claim that “the proprietary interests of the
government can only be disposed of by act of Congress.”153 As the Court explained two years
later in Knote, until a third party received the proceeds or the government deposited the funds in
the Treasury, the proceeds “were within the control of the court, and . . . no vested right to the
proceeds had accrued so as to prevent the pardon from restoring them to the claimant.”154
The Appropriations Clause did not bar an order requiring return of the forfeiture proceeds because
payment to Osborn would not come from funds in the Treasury. According to the Court,
Congress’s exclusive control over funds extends only to those deposited in the Treasury, and it
does not appear that the Supreme Court has ever held that any portion of the Constitution requires
an agency to deposit the funds it receives in the Treasury.155 Thus, a key component of the statutes
that implement Congress’s power of the purse is the requirement, imposed by the Miscellaneous
Receipts Act, that agencies deposit public money in the Treasury.156
Second, the Court has constrained Congress’s power of the purse by relying on express
constitutional provisions that limit Congress’s ability to withhold funding from another branch.
Generally, “Congress has full control of salaries” provided to federal officers and employees.157
The Framers recognized, though, that if this control extended to all members of the executive and
judicial branches, Congress could use its appropriations power to erode the independence of the
other branches. Writing in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton indirectly warned that a
148 The Court has also held that Congress cannot exercise its appropriations power in a way that violates
constitutionally protected individual rights. See, e.g., United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 315 (1946) (invalidating an
appropriations rider because by prohibiting use of appropriated funds to pay the salaries of named government
employees suspected of being communists the rider functioned as an unconstitutional bill of attainder); see also U.S.
CONST. art I, § 9, cl. 3 (“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”). These individual-rights cases are
beyond the scope of this report.
149 91 U.S. 474, 475 (1875).
150 Id.
151 Id. at 476.
152 Id. at 477.
153 Id. at 478.
154 United States v. Knote, 95 U.S. 149, 156 (1877); see also Osborn, 91 U.S. at 479 (“The power of the court over
moneys belonging to its registry continues until they are distributed pursuant to final decrees in the cases in which the
moneys are paid.”).
155 However, at least one scholar has argued that the term “Treasury,” as used in the Appropriations Clause, should be
understood as “[a]ll funds belonging to the United States[,] received from whatever source, however obtained, and
whether in the form of cash, intangible property, or physical assets.” See Stith, supra note 9, at 1356.
156 See infra notes 197–237 and text.
157 Embry v. United States, 100 U.S. 680, 685 (1879).
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Congress with full control over presidential compensation could “weaken [the President’s]
fortitude by operating on his necessities” or “corrupt his integrity by appealing to his avarice.”158
Hamilton separately cautioned that “the complete separation of the judicial from the legislative
power” could not be achieved “in any system which leaves the [judiciary] dependent for
pecuniary resources on the occasional grants of the [the legislature.]”159 The Constitution
therefore provides protections for the salary of the President and of federal justices and judges.
Congress may not increase or decrease the President’s salary during the President’s term in
office,160 and Congress may not decrease—but may increase—the salaries of federal justices and
judges during their terms in office.161
The Court has not applied the prohibition against changes in presidential salary, but the Court has
invalidated appropriation riders that unlawfully diminished the salaries of federal judges during
their terms in office. In United States v. Will, a class of federal judges sued the United States,
claiming that Congress had unconstitutionally diminished judicial salaries. 162 Under the law then
in effect, federal judges received the same annual cost-of-living provided to General Schedule
employees, which the Court said was set by a statutory formula.163 Beginning in fiscal year (FY)
1977, and continuing through FY1980, Congress enacted statutes—three of which it adopted as
limitations in an appropriations act—denying a pay adjustment for justices and judges, among
others.164 Two of these blocking acts became law before the start of the fiscal year to which the
statute applied, while the other two became law after the start of the relevant fiscal year.165 In
Will, the Supreme Court held that “a salary increase ‘vests’ for purposes of the Compensation
Clause,” and thus Congress could not block the increase, “only when it takes effect as part of the
compensation due and payable to Article III judges.”166
This dividing line, between contingent and vested salary increases, balanced Congress’s
discretion to increase (or not increase) the salary of judges against concerns for judicial
independence. “To say that the Congress could not alter a method of calculating salaries before it
was executed would mean the Judicial Branch could command Congress to carry out an
announced future intent as to a decision the Constitution vests exclusively in the Congress.”167
Applying this dividing line, the Court invalidated the two blocking statutes that became law after
the start of the relevant fiscal year—by which time the salary increases had vested—but denied
158 THE FEDERALIST NO. 73, at 441–42 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961).
159 Id. NO. 79, at 472.
160 U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1, cl. 7 (“The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which
shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not
receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”).
161 Id. art. III, § 1 (“The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good
Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during
their Continuance in Office.”).
162 449 U.S. 200 (1980).
163 Id. at 203–04.
164 See Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 1977, Pub. L. No. 94-440, 90 Stat. 1439, 1446 (1976) (FY1977
blocking act); Pub. L. No. 95-66, 91 Stat. 270, 270 (1977) (FY1978 blocking act); Legislative Branch Appropriations
Act of 1979, Pub. L. No. 95-391, Title III, § 304(a), 92 Stat. 763, 788–89 (1978) (FY1978 blocking act); Continuing
Appropriations Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-86, § 101(c), 93 Stat. 656, 657 (1979) (FY1980 blocking act).
165 Will, 449 U.S. at 205–08.
166 Id. at 228–29.
167 Id. at 228.
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relief for the two blocking statutes that became law before the start of the relevant fiscal year—
and thus before any salary increase had vested.168
Third, the Court has on at least one occasion, in United States v. Klein,169 invoked separation-ofpowers principles to hold that Congress may not use its appropriations power to control how
another branch exercises its constitutional powers. Klein arose from a complex background of
court decisions and congressional action.170 In 1869, the Supreme Court held, in United States v.
Padelford,171 that a person pardoned for supporting the Confederacy “was as innocent in law as
though he had never participated” in the rebellion.172 Though he “certainly afforded aid and
comfort to the rebellion” by acting as surety to certain bonds, because of the pardon Padelford
had a right to the proceeds from the sale of his property seized during the Civil War.173 The Court
thus affirmed a judgment of the Court of Claims awarding proceeds to Padelford.174
The next year, using the appropriations process, Congress expressed its disapproval of Padelford.
Congress appropriated $100,000 for “payment of judgments which may be rendered” by the
Court of Claims “in favor of claimants” but limited use of the appropriation.175 The limitation
included in the appropriation prohibited proof of a pardon or amnesty from either being offered
into evidence or considered by the Court of Claims in support of a claim.176 The claimant had to
prove loyalty to the United States “irrespective” of any pardon.177 If an individual accepted a
pardon for acts done in support of the Confederacy without denying having provided the support,
the person’s acceptance would be “conclusive evidence” of ineligibility.178 Any case then before a
federal court that fit this category would have to be dismissed, notwithstanding Padelford, as no
appropriation was available to pay the judgment sought by the pardoned claimant.179
168 See id. at 224–30. In 1989, Congress amended the cost-of-living formula statute to its current form (the 1989
statute). In 2012, sitting en banc, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that blocking acts passed in the
1990s “constitute[d] unconstitutional diminishments of judicial compensation.” Beer v. United States, 696 F.3d 1174,
1186 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (en banc). The Federal Circuit distinguished Will by characterizing the 1989 statute as
“provid[ing] [cost-of-living adjustments] according to a mechanical, automatic process that creates expectation and
reliance when read in light of the Compensation Clause.” Id. at 1181. Given this expectation and reliance, “all sitting
federal judges are entitled to expect that their real salary will not diminish due to inflation or the action or inaction of
the other branches of Government.” Id. at 1184. “If a future Congress wishe[d] to undo” the “promises” of selfexecuting pay increases under the 1989 statute, the Federal Circuit reasoned, “it may, but only prospectively. Any
restructuring of compensation maintenance promises cannot affect currently-sitting Article III judges.” Id. at 1185. The
Supreme Court has not granted review in a case raising questions about Congress’s ability to block pay raises that
would otherwise go into effect under the current statute.
169 80 U.S. 128 (1872).
170 See Price, supra note 10, at 398–99 (referring to Klein as an “important (if famously opaque) Reconstruction-era
decision”).
171 76 U.S. 531 (1869).
172 Klein, 80 U.S. at 132–33.
173 Padelford, 76 U.S. at 536, 543.
174 See id. at 543.
175 Law of July 12, 1870, ch. 251, 16 Stat. 230, 235 (1870).
176 Id.
177 Id.
178 Id.
179 See Id.
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Against this backdrop, Klein reached the Supreme Court. Just like Padelford, Treasury agents
seized and sold Klein’s180 cotton, depositing the proceeds of the sale into the Treasury.181 Just like
Padelford, Klein had “voluntarily become the surety on the official bonds of certain officers of
the rebel confederacy, and so given aid and comfort.”182 And just like Padelford, Klein received a
pardon.183 Klein sought an award of the proceeds from the sale of his property.184
Thus, the question before the Supreme Court in Klein was whether to enforce the limitation in the
1870 appropriation. If the Court enforced the limitation, a person who had performed acts in
support of the Confederacy would be ineligible for a sale proceeds award. Klein’s claim would
have to be denied. But the Court did not enforce the limitation.185 The Court recognized that
“[u]ndoubtedly the legislature has complete control over the organization and existence of” the
court of claims (the court where the case originated) “and may confer or withhold the right of
appeal from its decisions.”186 The Court refused to find that this power decided the case, though,
because it was the “intention of the Constitution that each of the great co-ordinate departments of
the government . . . shall be, in its sphere, independent of the others.”187 Congress’s appropriation
limitation improperly intruded upon both of the other branches’ spheres. Congress sought to
modify proceedings in the federal courts for the impermissible end of “prescrib[ing] rules of
decision to the Judicial Department of the government in cases pending before it.”188 And
Congress had tried to limit a pardon’s effect.189 The limitation could not be honored without
intruding upon the finality of federal court judgments, the federal courts’ independent exercise of
the judicial power, or the President’s pardon power.
Klein does not establish a bright-line rule for distinguishing between lawful and unlawful
appropriations riders, and the Supreme Court does not appear to have disregarded an
appropriations rider in any later case because of separation-of-powers concerns. This dearth of
relevant case law is perhaps because, as the Court explained more than a century later, cases
raising separation-of-powers questions in the appropriations context “implicate[] the fundamental
relationship between the Branches.”190 If the Court can avoid weighing in on a constitutional
180 More precisely, the cotton belonged to V.F. Wilson, who died before litigation began. Klein was the administrator
of Wilson’s estate and sued on behalf of the estate. See United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. 128, 136 (1872). For
simplicity’s sake, this report refers to Klein alone.
181 Id. at 131–32.
182 Id. at 132.
183 Id. at 141–42.
184 See id. at 136.
185 Id. at 148 (asserting the appropriation rider must have been “inserted in the appropriation bill through inadvertence”
and affirming the Court of Claims’s judgment).
186 Id. at 145.
187 Id. at 147.
188 Id. at 146; but see Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Soc., 503 U.S. 429, 438 (1992) (distinguishing Klein in a case in
which changes to law did not “direct any particular findings of fact or applications of law, old or new, to fact” but
rather amended existing law).
189 Klein, 80 U.S. at 148.
190 Am. Foreign Serv. Ass’n v. Garfinkel, 490 U.S. 153, 161–62 (1989) (vacating a district court judgment that
invalidated an appropriation rider related to executive branch use of confidentiality agreements, on the ground that the
rider impermissibly interfered with the President’s foreign affairs powers, because the district court could decide the
case on statutory rather than constitutional ground).
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question relating to this fundamental relationship, such as by deciding a case on another
ground,191 it likely will.
Still, two factors appear important under a Klein analysis. An appropriations rider must
significantly affect another branch’s exercise of a power conferred on that branch by the
Constitution. It also appeared noteworthy to the Court that, in adopting the rider, Congress
exercised its appropriations power to pursue an impermissible end. For example, in Klein the
Court recognized that Congress could pass legislation to shape federal court jurisdiction and
proceedings, but the Court appears to have decided that the rider was not a bona fide use of this
authority. “[T]he language of the proviso shows plainly that it does not intend to withhold
appellate jurisdiction except as a means to an end,” which was to infringe on the President’s
pardon power.192 If Congress could not nullify a pardon directly, such as by passing legislation
purporting to revoke a pardon, under Klein’s reasoning, it could not accomplish that end
indirectly by conditioning appropriated funds in a manner that denied a pardon its effect. 193
Key Takeaways: The Appropriations Clause’s Limits
As a constitutionally conferred power, Congress’s power to control the other branches through
appropriations is limited only by the Constitution itself.
The Appropriations Clause does not apply to money held outside of the Treasury. As described later in this
report, this aspect of the Court’s jurisprudence generally has limited practical effect, because, by statute,
agencies usually must deposit in the Treasury money received for the government.
Express provisions of the Constitution limit Congress’s authority to control the compensation provided to
the President or to federal justices and judges.
The Supreme Court has refused to give effect to an appropriation rider that, in the Court’s judgment,
infringed on the constitutional functions of the executive and judicial branches.
Congress’s Fiscal Control Statutes
The Appropriations Clause is not the only means for Congress to ensure that obligations stay
within the scope of the budget authority it grants. Rather, Congress has adopted a series of fiscal
control statutes that provide “the operational and definitional framework for the enactment and
expenditure of appropriations.”194 These statutes govern the receipt of funds by an executive
branch agency; the purposes for which appropriated funds may be obligated; the authority of an
agency to shift funds between or within appropriations; and when an agency may delay the
obligation or expenditure of budget authority. Departures from or variations on these rules may
exist in the statutes pertaining to a specific agency or agencies, such as statutes dealing with the
National Intelligence Program,195 and may also create additional funds control measures for
191 Id. at 161 (“[W]e emphasize that the District Court should not pronounce upon the relative constitutional authority
of Congress and the Executive Branch unless it finds it imperative to do so.”).
192 Klein, 80 U.S. at 145 (emphasis added).
193 See id. at 148 (“It is clear that the legislature cannot change the effect of such a pardon any more than the executive
can change a law. Yet this is attempted by the provision under consideration.”).
194 Stith, supra note 9, 1363.
195 See 50 U.S.C. § 3003(6) (defining the National Intelligence Program as “all programs, projects, and activities of the
intelligence community” except for intelligence gathered solely for “tactical military operations by United States
Armed Forces”); see also, e.g., id. § 3024(c)(5)–(6) & (d) (assigning the Director of National Intelligence
responsibilities for apportionment, transfers, and reprogramming of budget authority made available for the National
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particular agencies, programs, or statutory authorities. But, generally speaking, the fiscal control
statutes act as a set of background rules governing agency authority to retain, obligate, and
expend public money.
The Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA)
As noted above, the Appropriations Clause has generally been construed to establish the Treasury
as a special place of deposit. Funds deposited in the Treasury may not be obligated or expended
without an appropriation, while funds held outside the Treasury are not subject to the same
limitation.196 Congress does not directly administer the Treasury.197 Nor does Congress act as the
collecting agent for funds owed to the government.198 Thus, without a requirement that federal
agencies pay funds they receive into the Treasury, the executive branch could, practically
speaking, narrow the Appropriations Clause’s reach. Agencies might be able to avoid the need for
an appropriation—and all of the control and accountability an appropriation entails—by keeping
(for example) tax collections outside the Treasury and financing agency operations with such
funds.
Given this potential, it is perhaps surprising that Congress did not legislate a Treasury deposit
requirement until 1849, a full 60 years after the Clause’s adoption. Before 1849, federal agencies
commonly deducted sums from money the agency received in the ordinary course of its
operations and used those deductions to pay expenses. Thus, for example, in 1845 revenue agents
responsible for collecting duties on imports deposited in the Treasury only 85% of the duties they
collected. The agents used the balance, 15% of all collections, to cover expenses and other
payments.199 The withheld amount was a large sum of money for the time, more than 10% of all
federal revenues raised in a typical fiscal year.200
In response, Congress passed a statute requiring federal officers or employees to pay into the
Treasury, “at as early a day as practicable” “the gross amount of all duties received from customs,
from the sales of public lands, and from all miscellaneous sources, for the use of the United
States.”201 Proponents justified this new statutory requirement, the forerunner of today’s MRA, on
varying grounds, with some arguing that it improved transparency202 and others touting the
requirement as an anti-fraud measure.203 Congress’s aim was to compel the executive branch to
Intelligence Program).
196 See supra notes 149–156 and text.
197 31 U.S.C. § 302 (“The United States Government has a Treasury of the United States. The Treasury is in the
Department of the Treasury.”).
198 E.g., 26 U.S.C. § 6301 (“The Secretary [of the Treasury] shall collect the taxes imposed by the internal revenue
laws.”).
199 More specifically, “the gross amount of revenue accruing from imports was $30,892,000” but only $26,326,000 of
this sum was “actually paid into the treasury.” CONG. GLOBE, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 464 (Mar. 15, 1848) (Rep. McKay).
200 During FY1845, the federal government collected $29,769,133.56 from all sources. DEP’T OF TREASURY, REPORT
FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY ON THE STATE OF FINANCES 1 (Dec. 3, 1845). During FY1846, total federal
revenue collected equaled $29,499,247.06. DEP’T OF TREASURY, REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY ON
THE STATE OF FINANCES 1 (Dec. 10, 1846).
201 Act of March 3, 1849, ch. 110, 9 Stat. 398, 398 (1849).
202 See CONG. GLOBE, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 464 (Mar. 15, 1848) (Rep. McKay) (arguing that the MRA would “give a
true exposé of the whole expenses of the Government”).
203 See id. (Rep. Pollock) (stating that the MRA would “secure the Government from frauds on the part of those who,
under existing laws, received payment of demands upon the Government without appropriations therefor by law”).
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place public moneys in a legally significant place, the Treasury, where “[o]nce money is
deposited . . . it takes an appropriation to get it out.”204
Congress has revised the MRA since its initial adoption, but its purpose remains to “preserve
congressional control of the appropriations power.”205 The current statute appears at 31 U.S.C.
§ 3302(b), which provides that “an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the
Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury as soon as practicable
without deduction for any charge or claim.”206 But Congress may provide exceptions to the
MRA’s Treasury deposit requirement and allow agencies to keep public money that they
receive.207 Common examples of MRA exceptions include an agency’s authority to accept and
retain gifts or other contributions208 or to use funds received through enforcement activities to
finance those activities.209 Congress may also permit an agency to charge fees to offset the cost of
providing “a service or thing of value.”210 But unless Congress additionally allows the agency to
retain and spend the proceeds of its fees,211 the agency must deposit the fees in the Treasury.
Congress would need to specify (for example) that user fees collected are “available until
expended” by the agency for specified purposes.212
Agencies must deposit public money received for the United States “not later than the third day”
after receipt of the money,213 though the Secretary of the Treasury has authority to prescribe, by
204 2 GAO REDBOOK, supra note 30, at ch. 6, p. 6-168 (3d ed., 2006), https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/202819.pdf.
Despite Congress’s aspirations for the statute, agency officials continued to hold public money outside the Treasury,
prompting more legislation imposing penalties not provided for in the original act. See, e.g., Joint Resolution of March
30, 1868, §§ 1–2, 15 Stat. 251, 251 (1868) (requiring agencies to “immediately” pay into the Treasury any money
derived from the “sale of captured or abandoned property in the late insurrectionary districts” and declaring that
officials who did not immediately pay such money into the Treasury would be guilty of embezzlement). Adopted
during Reconstruction, the statute addressed the particular needs of that era; no criminal penalties survive in the modern
MRA.
205 Scheduled Airlines Traffic Offenses, Inc. v. Dep’t of Def., 87 F.3d 1356, 1362 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
206 31 U.S.C. § 3302(b). Though the Act appears to apply to the federal judiciary as well as the executive branch, see
Lee v. United States, 33 Fed. Cl. 374, 383 (Ct. Cl. 1995) (holding that the court could not order filing fees refunded to a
plaintiff because the MRA required the Clerk of Courts to deposit the fees in the Treasury), other statutes separately
require federal clerks of court to “pay into the Treasury all fees, costs, and other moneys collected by” the relevant
clerk. See 28 U.S.C. § 671(d) (Supreme Court); id. § 711(c) (circuit courts of appeals); id. § 751(e) (district courts); id.
§ 156(f) (bankruptcy courts); id. § 791(b) (Court of Federal Claims).
207 See Application of the Miscellaneous Receipts Act to the Settlement of False Claims Act Suits Concerning
Contracts with the General Services Administration, 30 Op. O.L.C. 53, 57 (2006) (explaining that “Congress simply
supersedes its own general statute,” the MRA, “with a specific statute” that creates “an exception to the MRA that
gives an agency statutory authority to direct funds elsewhere” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
208 10 U.S.C. § 2350J (authorizing for the Secretary of Defense to accept and use burden-sharing contributions from
“any country or regional organization” to pay local nationals who are DOD employees, for military construction, and
for DOD supplies and services).
209 28 U.S.C. § 524(c) (permitting DOJ to use the proceeds from forfeiture proceedings and other sources to cover
specified expenses).
210 31 U.S.C. § 9701(b).
211 See SBA’s Imposition of Oversight Review Fees on PLP Lenders, B-300248, 2004 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 13, at
*8–9 (Comp. Gen. Jan. 15, 2004).
212 See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1356(n) (“All deposits into the ‘Immigration Examinations Fee Account’ shall remain available
until expended . . . to reimburse any appropriation the amount paid out of such appropriation for expenses in providing
immigration adjudication and naturalization services and the collection, safeguarding and accounting for fees deposited
in and funds reimbursed from the ‘Immigration Examinations Fee Account.’”).
213 31 U.S.C. § 3302(c)(1).
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regulation, a different deposit time frame.214 Officers or employees who violate this promptdeposit requirement “may be removed from office . . . [and] may be required to forfeit to the
Government any part of the money held by” that person to which he or she “may be entitled.”215
Though there appears to be no case law on this point, the MRA’s text could allow the government
to seek forfeiture of funds, such as salary or savings, belonging to the federal custodian
responsible for violating the Act.216 Under this reading, it would be no defense to forfeiture for
the employee to assert that the public money wrongfully held outside the Treasury was no longer
in his or her possession because (for example) the agency had spent the funds; the government
has recourse, through forfeiture, to “any part of the money held by that person.”217
The MRA’s prompt-deposit requirement triggers upon receipt of “money for the Government
from any source.”218 Money falls within the scope of the Act if an agency will use the money to
“bear[] the expenses of the administration of the Government and pay[] the obligations of the
United States.”219 Actual receipt of funds is neither necessary, nor is it sufficient, for the MRA to
apply. An agency violates the MRA if it requires a third party to make payments on its behalf to
satisfy an agency obligation, even though no agency employee receives money from the third
party.220 But the MRA does not apply to money held by the United States for a third party (e.g., in
214 Id. § 3302(c)(2).
215 Id. § 3302(d).
216 More broadly, public employees who have authority to spend public money are often accountable for funds that are
improperly spent. See, e.g., id. § 3528(a)(4) (making a “certifying official” “responsible for . . . repaying a payment”
that is prohibited by law or “does not represent a legal obligation under the appropriation or fund involved”); id.
§ 3325(a)(3) (providing that a “disbursing official” may be “held accountable for” carrying out statutory
responsibilities); see also, e.g., O.R.C. § 117.28 (state statute authorizing a civil action “for the recovery of the money
or property” that is the subject of an “audit report [that] sets forth that any public money has been illegally expended, or
that any public money collected has not been accounted for, or that any public money due has not been collected, or
that any public property has been converted or misappropriated”).
217 31 U.S.C. § 3302(d) (emphasis added).
218 Id. § 3302(b).
219 Interstate Commerce Commission—Disposition of Excess Railway Operating Income, 33 Op. Att’y Gen. 316, 321
(1922). Attorney General Daughtery derived this meaning from the phrase “[f]or use of the United States,” which
appeared in a prior version of the MRA. See id. at 320–21. Congress revised and recodified the MRA in 1982 so that
the statute applied to moneys received “for the Government.” Act of Sept. 13, 1982, 96 Stat. 877, 948 (1982). Congress
did not intend this revision to change the MRA’s scope. See id., § 4(a), 96 Stat. at 1067 (relevant sections of the 1982
Act “may not be construed as making a substantive change in the laws replaced”); see also Commodity Futures Trading
Commission—Consistency of Real Property Leases with Miscellaneous Receipts Statute, B-327830, 2017 U.S. Comp.
Gen. LEXIS 29, at *11 (Comp. Gen. Feb. 8, 2017) (construing current MRA by applying same definition).
220 E.g., CFTC—Consistency of Real Property Leases, B-327830, 2017 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 29, at *19 (“The
critical factor in this case . . . is that [the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)] arranged for its landlord to
make payments to pay CFTC liabilities; thus, CFTC violated the miscellaneous receipts statute when the landlords
made the payments. CFTC should have deposited the amounts of these payments into the Treasury as miscellaneous
receipts.”); Department of Energy—December 2004 Agreement with the United States Enrichment Corporation, B307137, 2006 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 135, at *34–35 (Comp. Gen. July 12, 2006) (“[I]f DOE itself had sold its clean
uranium, rather than transferring the uranium to USEC to carry out the same task, the department admits that it could
not have legally retained the sales proceeds and applied them to pay its decontamination costs,” but would have instead
had to deposit the sale proceeds in the Treasury. “With the December 2004 Agreement, DOE circumvented the [MRA]
by its use of USEC as its sales agent [for the clean uranium] and its direct control of the disposition of the sales
proceeds.”).
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a statutory interpleader action221 in federal court).222 In either case, what matters is whether the
agency’s action has the effect of violating the Act’s “anti-augmentation principle.”223 Under this
principle, an agency may not “augment its appropriations from outside sources without statutory
authority.”224 Thus, when an agency has a third party pay expenses that the law considers
obligations of the agency, the agency improperly augments its appropriations by relying on funds
not governed by the appropriations process.225 But when an agency receives money “not available
to the United States for disposition on its own behalf,” the agency need not deposit the funds in
the Treasury because the agency cannot use the money to supplement its appropriations.226
One particular application of the MRA involves civil penalties. Congress often legislates by
prohibiting certain conduct and authorizing the imposition of penalties on those who violate the
prohibition. A penalty is money for the government, and thus, under the MRA, must be paid into
the Treasury.227 Two important consequences generally follow from this background rule.
First, GAO has concluded that when an agency alleges a violation of a statute that the agency
enforces through civil penalties, the agency’s ability to use civil penalty reductions as a
bargaining chip in settlement discussions is limited. The agency may agree to reduce or forgo
civil penalties paid under the settlement, but only if the settling party agrees to fund a remedial
project, such as environmental cleanup, that is sufficiently related to the violation.228 For
example, GAO disapproved of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) proposal
to “accept a charged party’s promise to make a donation to an educational institution as all or part
of a settlement agreement” resolving alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act
otherwise punishable through civil penalties.229 The CFTC had prosecutorial discretion and could
221 In a statutory interpleader action, one party who holds money or property (the stakeholder) asks a federal court to
resolve the contending claims of third parties (claimants) to that money or property (the stake). The stakeholder
deposits the stake “into the registry of the court,” where it remains until the court renders its judgment as to which of
the claimants is entitled to the stake. See 28 U.S.C. § 1335(a).
222 Matter of Office of Natural Res. Revenue—Disbursement of Mineral Royalties, B-321729, 2011 U.S. Comp. Gen.
LEXIS 186, at *8 (Comp. Gen. Nov. 2, 2011) (“Occasionally a government agency will receive money that is not
‘money for the Government,’ such as when the government has received the money for the benefit of another. In those
instances, neither the miscellaneous receipts statute nor the Appropriations Clause is implicated.”).
223 As discussed below, portions of the Antideficiency Act implement a similar anti-augmentation principle. See 31
U.S.C. § 1342 (generally prohibiting agency acceptance of “voluntary services”).
224 Application of the Miscellaneous Receipts Act to the Settlement of False Claims Act Suits Concerning Contracts
with the General Services Administration, 30 Op. O.L.C. at 56; see also Motor Coach Industries, Inc. v. Dole, 725 F.2d
958, 968 (4th Cir. 1984) (noting that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had attempted an “end-run around
normal appropriation channels” that effectively “supplement[ed] its budget by $3 million without congressional action”
when it waived certain fees imposed on airlines in exchange for the airlines’ agreement to pay into a trust controlled by
the FAA for use in expanding bus transportation to Dulles International Airport).
225 See Matter of Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight—Settlement Agreement with Freddie Mac, B-306860,
2006 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 43, at *7 (Comp. Gen. Feb. 28, 2006) (“A ‘de facto’ augmentation occurs when an
agency arranges for an outside source to defray an obligation of the agency.”).
226 Effect of 31 U.S.C. § 484 on the Settlement Authority of the Attorney General, 4B Op. O.L.C. 684, 687 (1980).
227 E.g., Pub. Interest Research Grp. v. Powell Duffryn Terminals, 913 F.2d 64, 82 (3d Cir. 1990) (“Courts have
consistently stated that penalties in citizen suits under the Act must be paid to the Treasury.”).
228 See, e.g., Decision of Comptroller General of the United States—Environmental Protection Agency Mobile Air
Source Pollution Enforcement Actions, 1992 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 1319, at *2 (Comp. Gen. July 7, 1992)
(concluding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacked authority to “allow alleged violators” of the Clean Air
Act’s mobile source air pollution requirements “to fund public awareness and other projects relating to automobile air
pollution in exchange for reductions of the civil penalties assessed against them”), recon. denied by Decision of Gen.
Counsel Hinchman, B-247155.2, 1993 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 1168 (Comp. Gen. Mar. 1, 1993).
229 Matter of Commodity Futures Trading Commission—Donations Under Settlement Agreements, B-210210, 1983
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obtain relief in a settlement that it could not impose through an adjudication.230 The statute also
tasks the CFTC with “establish[ing] and maintain[ing] research and information programs”
related to futures trading.231 Still, GAO reasoned that “there are limits to what” the CFTC could
accept under a settlement that reduced civil penalties.232 The CFTC would exceed these limits by
reducing civil penalties in exchange for a party’s donation of fund “to an educational institution
that has no relationship to the violation and that has suffered no injury from the violation.”233 That
said, Congress may grant an agency more or less authority to bargain away civil penalties, and the
language of the agency’s enforcement statutes determines the extent of its bargaining authority.234
Second, the MRA limits the discretion of courts to direct the use of civil penalties, whether as part
of a judgment or a settlement. While a federal statute may permit a private party to supplement
the federal government’s enforcement of the statute by bringing a “citizen suit,” civil penalties
obtained as a result of the private party’s litigation belong in the Treasury.235 This requirement
constrains a federal court’s ability to order that a penalty be used for a specified purpose, such as
for environmental remediation, rather than be deposited in the Treasury.236 One court has opined
that “simply depositing civil penalties into the vast reaches of the United States Treasury does not
seem to be the most effective way of combating” the violation that led to the enforcement action,
but given the limits imposed by the MRA, “once a penalty has been assessed by the court, the
penalty must be paid into the Treasury.”237
Key Takeaways: Miscellaneous Receipts Act
The MRA requires an official or agent of the United States to deposit money received for the federal
government in the Treasury, without any deduction, as soon as practicable.
An agency needs statutory authority to retain and obligate or expend the funds that it receives in the course
of its operations.
The MRA embodies an “anti-augmentation principle,” under which an agency may not supplement the
appropriations that it receives from Congress with other sources of revenue, such as by requiring a third
party to pay the agency’s costs.
U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 544, at *1–2 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 14, 1983).
230 Id. at 2.
231 Id. at *1 (internal quotation marks omitted).
232 Id. at *4.
233 Id. at *5.
234 Decision of General Counsel Hinchman, B-247155.2, 1993 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 1168, at *2–4 (Comp. Gen.
March 1, 1993) (suggesting that under its authority to “compromise or remit” administrative penalties the EPA could
reduce penalties in exchange for the violator’s agreement to fund “an environmental restoration project which calls for
the acquisition and preservation of wetlands in the immediate vicinity of wetlands injured by unlawful discharges” but
disapproving of EPA’s use of this authority to “go beyond correcting the violation at issue” by reducing penalties in
exchange for the violator’s support of a public outreach campaign that bore no “nexus” or “connection” to its
violation).
235 Pub. Interest Research Grp. v. Powell Duffryn Terminals, 913 F.2d 64, 81–82 (3d Cir. 1990).
236 Id. at 82 (reversing district court order that required payment of civil penalties into a trust fund for use in
environmental remediation).
237 See United States v. Smithfield Foods, 982 F. Supp. 373, 375–76 (E.D. Va. 1997).
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The Purpose Statute
Once an agency deposits funds in the Treasury, or when the Treasury receives funds from a
nonfederal source, the funds may be withdrawn from the Treasury only “in Consequence of” an
appropriation made by Law.238 This phrase is not “self-defining,” though, and Congress has
“plenary power to give [it] meaning.”239 Congress has further defined in the Purpose Statute, 31
U.S.C. § 1301(a), how an agency may obligate appropriated Treasury funds.
Early Congresses appropriated funds with varying specificity. For example, Congress’s first
appropriations act provided an entire year’s worth of funding for the executive branch in a single
paragraph setting forth sums for the civil list,240 the Department of War, Treasury warrants, and
pensions.241 Later acts took a more granular approach to funding. For example, in 1795 Congress
set compensation for officers and employees of the Department of the Treasury on an office-byoffice basis, providing one sum for the Auditor’s office and a different sum for the Register’s
office.242 Despite this specificity, some in Congress argued that the Secretary of the Treasury
acted as if he was “at liberty to take . . . money from an item where there was a surplus”—say,
from funds appropriated for the Auditor’s office—“and apply it to another where it was
wanted”—say, to cover a shortfall in funding for the Register’s office.243
This perceived discretion troubled some Members of Congress. In March 1797, Congress
considered appropriating funds to complete construction of the U.S.S. Constitution and U.S.S.
Constellation, two of the first six frigates built for the U.S. Navy.244 Once built, though,
prominent Members of the House of Representatives did not want either frigate manned and put
to sea.245 Thus, although Congress appropriated funds for frigate construction, it further provided
that amounts appropriated “shall be solely applied to the objects for which they are respectively
appropriated.”246 The 1797 appropriations act marked the first time that Congress, in express
terms, limited the purposes for which appropriated funds could be obligated. But this early
assertion of congressional control was short lived. In 1798 the House refused to add similar
language to that year’s military appropriations act, with certain members voicing fear that the
restriction “would embarrass the proceedings of the War Department.”247
238 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 7.
239 Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190, 194–95 (D.C. Cir. 1977).
240 Congress appears to have borrowed and modified the phrase “civil list” from English fiscal practice, where it
“cover[ed] the expenditure of the [Monarch’s] court and of the entire central administration.” EINZIG, supra note 7, at
119. “[E]xpenses in relation to the civil list” were “chiefly for salaries.” CONTROL OF FEDERAL EXPENDITURES: A
DOCUMENTARY HISTORY 1775-1894, at 199 (Fred Wilbur Powell ed., 1939).
241 Law of Sept. 29, 1789, ch. 24, § 1, 1 Stat. 95, 95 (1789); see also Law of Feb. 11, 1791, ch. 6, 1 Stat. 190, 190
(1791) (one-paragraph appropriation).
242 E.g., Law of Jan. 2, 1795, ch. 8, § 1, 1 Stat. 405, 406 (1795).
243 6 ANNALS OF CONG. 2350 (Mar. 2, 1797) (Rep. Gallatin).
244 See IAN W. TOLL, SIX FRIGATES: THE EPIC HISTORY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE U.S. NAVY 40–44 & 61 (2006).
245 6 ANNALS OF CONG. 2350 (Mar. 2, 1797) (Rep. Gallatin) (warning that under the President’s view of his discretion
“money might be found to get the frigates to sea from the appropriations for the Military Department, if the President
should it necessary so to apply it”).
246 Law of Mar. 3, 1797, ch. 17, § 1, 1 Stat. 508, 509 (1797).
247 8 ANNALS OF CONG. 1874 (June 7, 1798). The House took this step even though, months earlier, War Department
reports had shown that the executive branch continued to use appropriations for purposes not permitted by the
appropriation. Id. at 1544–45 (Apr. 25, 1798) (Rep. S. Smith) (commenting on estimates prepared by the Quartermaster
General that showed the Army had used appropriations meant for its supply officer to build fortifications and “vessels
of war and galleys”) (asserting that “[u]nless Congress can get the Secretary of War to understand what they mean by
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By 1809, the proponents of more narrowly constraining executive discretion over appropriated
funds won out over those who preferred greater agency flexibility. That year, Congress adopted
the first permanent, government-wide purpose limitation. Congress provided that “the sums
appropriated by law for each branch of expenditure in the several departments shall be solely
applied to the objects for which they are respectively appropriated, and to no other.”248 Similar
language survives today in the Purpose Statute, which states that “[a]ppropriations shall be
applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made except as otherwise provided
by law.”249 By requiring a connection between an appropriated purpose and a use of funds, the
Purpose Statute establishes that “for appropriated funds to be legally available for an expenditure,
the purpose of the obligation or expenditure must be authorized.”250
An agency applies the Purpose Statute by first looking to the relevant appropriation, which
identifies the “objects” for which sums are appropriated.251 While an appropriation may appear in
any statute, an annual appropriations act, for example, might consist of unnumbered paragraphs
identifying the purpose, amount, and time period of available budget authority.252 Each paragraph
corresponds to an appropriation account.253 For example, the Department of Defense
Appropriations Act for FY2020 includes an appropriation for operations-and-maintenance
(O&M) for the Department of the Army, consisting of roughly $39.5 billion made available “[f]or
expenses, not otherwise provided for, necessary for the operation and maintenance of the
Army.”254 How Congress structures appropriations affects how an agency may obligate funds,
with more narrowly phrased appropriations providing less flexibility than more generally phrased
appropriations; if, instead of confining the expenditure of money to the purposes for which it is appropriated, he
employ it in building ships of war and fortifications; they may vote $500,000,” more than double the amount under
discussion for the 1798 quartermaster appropriation, “and still be called upon to supply deficiencies”). This change in
approach likely was due to a shift in party control of the House. Democratic-Republicans controlled the House up until
the day the 1797 military appropriations act passed. The Federalists then assumed control, alongside the newly elected
Federalist President John Adams.
248 Law of Mar. 3, 1809, ch. 28, 2 Stat. 535, 535 (1809). At the same time that Congress adopted this purpose
restriction, Congress granted the President authority to transfer funds between different “branch[es] of expenditures”
during recesses of Congress, id. at 535–36, a form of standing transfer authority that would exist until repealed in 1868,
Law of Feb. 12, 1868, ch. 8, 15 Stat. 35, 36 (1868) (repealing relevant portions of the 1809 Act and all other acts
“authorizing such transfers of appropriations” and directing that “no money appropriated for one purpose shall
hereafter be used for any other purpose than that for which it is appropriated”).
249 31 U.S.C. § 1301(a).
250 U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1348 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh, J.) (quotation
marks omitted).
251 Department of Defense—Availability of Appropriations for Border Fence Construction, B-330862, 2019 U.S.
Comp. Gen. LEXIS 276, at *27 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 5, 2019) (noting that the text of an agency’s appropriations is
“paramount” in a Purpose Statute analysis).
252 Alternatively, Congress may state the period of an appropriation’s availability in provisions that apply generally.
See, e.g., Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, Div. B, Preamble and Title XIII,
§ 23002 (2020) (providing appropriations “for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020” and further specifying that
“[n]o part of any appropriation contained in this Act shall remain available for obligation beyond the current fiscal year
unless expressly so provided herein.”
253 GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 2.
254 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Pub. L. No. 116-93, Div. A, Title II, 133 Stat. 2317, 2321 (2019).
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appropriations.255 Besides the appropriations themselves, an agency identifies the purposes for
which appropriated funds may be obligated by looking to its authorizing statutes.256
An authorizing or appropriating statute need not specifically reference a proposed expense for
that expense to be permissible under the Purpose Statute.257 The functions of the federal
government are generally too varied to require this specificity. And even if this level of specificity
were possible, it may be undesirable; the more prescriptive an appropriation, the less flexibility an
agency has to obligate appropriations to account for unanticipated circumstances. According to
GAO, “where an appropriation is made for a particular object, by implication it confers authority
to incur expenses which are necessary or proper or incident to the proper execution of the
object.”258
Thus, an appropriation may confer authority for an agency to obligate or expend in one of two
ways: either the agency has express authority to obligate funds for an expense because the statute
refers to an expense or object, or the agency has implied authority to obligate funds for an
expense that while not mentioned in the text of the appropriations act is sufficiently related to
those expenses that are referenced.259 GAO has developed a three-factor “necessary expense” test
to determine whether an agency’s appropriations confer implied authority for a given expense.260
First, the expenditure must bear a logical or reasonable relationship to accomplishing an
authorized agency function.261 Whether a logical relationship exists depends on the facts of a
given case, including the type of proposed expense, any limitations imposed on use of the
appropriations, and the agency’s statutory mission and authorities. Broad statements about this
element have limited value, because “[t]he concept of ‘necessary expenses’ is a relative one,
255 See, e.g., Matter of Army—Availability of Procurement Appropriation for Logistical Support Contractors, B-
303170, 2005 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 71, at *7–8 (Comp. Gen. Apr. 22, 2005) (“Many agencies do not have to make
the distinction between procurement activities and operational activities that the Army must make, because the
appropriations structure for those agencies differs from that of the Army. Instead of receiving separate appropriations,
one for procurement and one for operations, those agencies may receive only one appropriation to cover all of the
agency’s expenses.”).
256 Department of Defense—Availability of Appropriations, B-330862, 2019 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 276, at *26
(noting that, along with text of the agency’s appropriations act, “[o]ther statutes, such as authorizing legislation, and the
agency’s interpretation of its appropriations are also relevant considerations”). By contrast, an agency may not justify
an obligation decision by relying on committee report directives that conflict with the text of relevant statutes. See
Election Assistance Comm’n—Obligation of Fiscal Year 2004 Requirements Payments Appropriation, B-318831, 2010
WL 176608, at *3 (Comp. Gen. Apr. 28, 2010) (“While views expressed in legislative history may be relevant in
statutory interpretation, those views are not a substitute for the statute itself where the statute is clear on its face.”).
257 See U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1348–49 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh, J.)
(considering whether a “general appropriation for an agency’s operations implicitly authorizes the purchase of bottled
water”).
258 Comptroller Gen. McCarl to Maj. Gen. Stephan, Commanding Officer, D.C. Militia, A-17673, 6 Comp. Gen. 619,
621 (1927).
259 See Department of Defense—Availability of Appropriations, B-330862, 2019 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 276, at*26.
260 See id. The Department of Justice has similarly concluded that authority to obligate or expend may be implied, and
it has provided agencies its own framework for deciding whether such implied authority exists. According to the Office
of Legal Counsel, this standard “mirrors” the GAO standard. See, e.g., State and Local Deputation of Federal Law
Enforcement Officers During Stafford Act Deployments, 2012 WL 1123840, at *8 (O.L.C. Mar. 5, 2012) (advising that
an agency may make an expenditure that it believes “bears a logical relationship to the objectives of the general
appropriation” and furthers the agency’s mission so long as the proposed expenditure does not offend a specific
limitation imposed on the general appropriation).
261 Matter of Implementation of Army Safety Program, B-223608, 1988 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 1582, at *5 (Comp.
Gen. Dec. 19, 1988) (“Where a given expenditure is neither specifically provided for nor prohibited, the question is
whether it bears a reasonable relationship to fulfilling an authorized purpose or function of the agency.”).
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defined in any given circumstance by the relationship of a particular proposed expenditure to the
specific appropriation to be charged.”262 Still, case law and administrative decisions identify rules
of thumb that bear on this element. Perhaps most importantly, an agency’s decision that a
proposed expense relates to one of its appropriations enjoys deference.263 The case law justifies
this deference by reasoning that the agency charged with carrying out a particular function is best
placed to determine the expenses necessary to carry out that function.264 When a reviewing body,
either a court or GAO, examines an agency’s spending under the Purpose Statute, the reviewing
body decides whether the agency’s relatedness determination is reasonable.265 The reviewing
body does not decide whether the agency’s use of funds was the best way to carry out its statutory
functions.266 In other words, “the necessary expense doctrine does not require that a given
expenditure be ‘necessary’ in the strict sense that the expenditure would be the only way to
accomplish a given goal.”267 Even so, there is a point past which an agency’s determination
becomes untenable. The decisions commonly state the agency’s articulated connection between
an expenditure and the appropriation to be charged can become “so attenuated as to take [the
expense] beyond the agency’s legitimate range of discretion.”268 If the agency goes to this
extreme, the Purpose Statute bars the use of funds.
Second, the proposed expense cannot be prohibited by law.269 Some expenditures may have a
logical relationship to achieving the agency’s statutory functions, but Congress may decide that
certain means to accomplish the agency’s functions are off limits to the agency. These
prohibitions exist in general and permanent laws. For example, Congress prohibits use of
appropriated funds, “in the absence of express authorization by Congress,” to lobby a “Member
of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government” to adopt or oppose any “legislation,
law, ratification, policy, or appropriation.”270 And with each appropriations act, Congress limits
262 See Matter of Air Force—Appropriations—Reimbursement for Costs of Licenses or Certificates, B-252467, 73
Comp. Gen. 171, 171 (1994).
263 See U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1349 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh, J.)
(“Whether an expenditure is reasonably necessary to accomplish the agency’s mission, in the first instance, is a matter
of agency discretion.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
264 E.g., Customs and Border Protection Relocation Expenses, B-306748, 2006 WL 1985415, at *6 (Comp. Gen. July 6,
2006) (“As the agency charged with securing U.S. borders, Customs is in the best position to determine whether
foreign residency could compromise security procedures and practices.”).
265 Cf. Matter of Implementation of Army Safety Program, 1988 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 1582, at *6 (Comp. Gen.
Dec. 19, 1988) (“When we review an expenditure with reference to its availability for the purpose at issue, the question
is not whether we would have exercised that discretion in the same manner. Rather, the question is whether the
expenditure falls within the agency’s legitimate range of discretion . . . .”).
266 J. Gregory Sidak, Esq., Covington & Burling, Counsel for Envelope Manufacturers Ass’n of Am., B-240914, 1991
WL 202594, at *2 (Comp. Gen. Aug. 14, 1991) (responding to request for an opinion from counsel for envelope
manufacturing trade association who claimed the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (“FPI”), a government corporation,
violated the Purpose Statute by using prisoners to manufacture envelopes, a highly automated function that the trade
association claimed conflicted with FPI’s duty of engaging in labor-intensive activities that would use as many
prisoners as possible) (“We do not opine, nor should we, on whether envelope manufacturing is the optimal choice of
industry for FPI. Rather, we conclude only that FPI has not abused its discretion in selecting that industry and, on this
basis, that expending appropriated funds to implement that choice would not violate section 1301(a).”).
267 Matter of Demolition of the Existing LaGuardia Air Traffic Control Tower, 2001 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 37, at *4
(Comp. Gen. Jan 29, 2001).
268 Matter of Food and Drug Administration—Use of Appropriations for “No Red Tape” Buttons & Mementoes, B257488, 1995 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 703, at *5 (Comp. Gen. Nov. 6, 1995).
269 See U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Labor Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1349 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh, J.).
270 18 U.S.C. § 1913. The statute carves out certain communications from this lobbying ban, such as those made
“through the proper official channels” or at the request of a Member of Congress or other official. Id.; see also Matter
of The Honorable William F. Clinger Chairman Comm. on Gov’t Reform and Oversight, 1996 U.S. Comp. Gen.
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the use of available appropriations, both in the description of particular appropriations in the
unnumbered paragraphs of the act,271 and in the numbered general provisions that follow the act’s
appropriations paragraphs.272
Third, if the proposed expense has a rational connection to an appropriation and is not prohibited
by law, the agency may incur the obligation using the appropriation that it proposes to charge, but
only if the agency does not have another appropriation that more specifically relates to the
expense.273 While the first two elements of the “necessary expense” test prevent an agency from
obligating Treasury funds for a purpose not authorized by law, this last element guards against an
agency expending funds for an authorized purpose using the wrong appropriation account. This
final requirement recognizes that Congress expresses its policy decisions not only in making
budget authority available but also in setting the amount of budget authority available. The
decision to make budget authority available expresses Congress’s judgment that the federal
government should be involved in a given function, while the decision of the amount of budget
authority available expresses Congress’s judgment of what the level of that involvement should
be.274 An agency therefore may not supplement the budget authority made available for a given
purpose in a particular appropriation with budget authority from another, more general
appropriation.275
That said, if Congress provides two equally available appropriations—which is “rare”276—the
agency has discretion over which to use.277 There is an exception to this exception. GAO has
LEXIS 489, at *3 (Comp. Gen. July 5, 1996) (noting that Section 1913 is a “criminal provision” and therefore enforced
by DOJ).
271 E.g., Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, Pub. L. No. 116-6, Div. A, 133 Stat. 13, 16 (2019) (appropriating
$168 million for “the necessary expenses” of the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General but
capping at $300,000 the Office’s expenses for “confidential operational expenses” such as payments to informants).
272
E.g., id., Div. C, § 537, 133 Stat. at 138 (“None of the funds made available under this Act to the Department of
Justice may be used . . . to prevent [particular states] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use,
distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”). For a discussion of limitations within appropriations
measures, see CRS Report R41634, Limitations in Appropriations Measures: An Overview of Procedural Issues, by
James V. Saturno.
273 Department of Defense—Availability of Appropriations for Border Fence Construction, B-330862, 2019 U.S.
Comp. Gen. LEXIS 276, at *30–31 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 5, 2019); see also U.S. Department of Agriculture—Economy
Act Transfers for Details of Personnel, B-328477, 2017 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 272, at *9 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 6, 2017)
(“if an expense falls specifically within the scope of one appropriation, though it may be reasonably related to the
purpose of a more general appropriation, the agency must use the more specific appropriation for the expense, unless
otherwise authorized by Congress” (emphasis added)).
274 See Nevada v. Dep’t of Energy, 400 F.3d 9, 16 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (rejecting a claim by Nevada for additional grant
funding to cover the State’s costs of participating in licensing proceedings for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca
Mountain because even though Congress made $190 million available for grants for “nuclear waste disposal activities”;
“the fact that Congress appropriated $1 million expressly for Nevada” to participate in licensing activities “indicates
that is all Congress intended Nevada to get in FY04 from whatever source”).
275 See, e.g., Unauthorized Legal Services Contracts Improperly Charged to Resource Management Appropriation, B290005, 2002 WL 1611488, at *3 (Comp. Gen. July 1, 2002) (concluding that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
improperly used its resource management appropriation for legal services provided by outside counsel as Congress had
more specifically appropriated funds for “necessary expenses of” the Department of Interior’s Solicitor who is
responsible for all Service legal work).
276 Matter of Commodity Futures Trading Commission—Availability of Appropriations for Inspector General
Overhead Expenses, 2015 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 426, at *6 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 29, 2015); see also Office of the
Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program—Use of Amounts for Oversight Activities, B-330984, 2020
WL 2745285, at *4 (Comp. Gen. May 27, 2020).
277 See Dep’t of Homeland Security—Use of Management Directorate Appropriations to Pay Costs of Component
Agencies, B-307382, 2006 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 138, at *12 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 5, 2006) (“Where one can
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opined that once the agency decides which of two equally available appropriations to use for a
given expense, the agency must stick to that choice when obligating funds for similar expenses in
the future.278 GAO’s rule appears to operate on the view that appropriators grow accustomed to
seeing a particular account used to satisfy particular expenses, and thus can be expected to
appropriate future sums with that practice in mind. The agency “must continue to use the same
appropriation for that purpose unless it informs Congress of its intent to change,”279 presumably
so that appropriators can account for this change.
Key Takeaways: The Purpose Statute
• The Purpose Statute confines use of appropriations to the “object for which the appropriation was made.”
• Appropriations confer express and implied authority to obligate or expend an appropriation.
• Express authority is the authority provided by the language of the appropriation.
• Implied authority is determined under the “necessary expense” test:
-
there must be a rational connection between expense and appropriation;
the expense must not be prohibited by law; and
the agency must use the appropriation that is most specific to the expense.
Transfers and Reprogramming
Congress also exerts control over agency use of appropriated funds by limiting an agency’s
ability to allocate funds using a transfer and reprogramming.280 As noted above, the unnumbered
paragraphs of an appropriations act reflect separate appropriations accounts.281 Congress’s
approach to structuring appropriations varies by agency. Some agencies see their annual
appropriations distributed across a dozen or more appropriations;282 other agencies have only a
few appropriations;283 still others receive only one.284 And in the unnumbered paragraphs of an
reasonably construe two appropriations as available for an expenditure not specifically mentioned in either
appropriation, we will accept an administrative determination as to which appropriation to charge.”).
278 See Department of the Interior—Activities at National Parks During the Fiscal Year 2019 Lapse in Appropriations,
B-330776, 2019 WL 4200991, at *10 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 5, 2019) (“[B]ecause [the National Parks Service (NPS)] has
historically charged the ONPS appropriation for such expenses, and clearly elected to continue to charge the ONPS
appropriation for such expenses in fiscal year 2019, as reflected in its congressional budget justification for fiscal year
2019, the ONPS appropriation was the only appropriation available for this purpose in fiscal year 2019”).
279 Matter of Commodity Futures Trading Commission—Availability of Appropriations for Inspector General Overhead
Expenses, B-327003, 2015 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 426, at *6 (emphasis added).
280 Because, as explained below, transfers and reprogramming are subject to different requirements, it is important to
keep the distinction between these two actions in mind. Some courts obscure this distinction by calling a transfer a
reprogramming or vice versa. See, e.g., Sierra Club v. Trump, 929 F.3d 670, 676 (9th Cir. 2019) (referring to the
administration’s transfer of funds between appropriation accounts as an instance of “reprogramming”). DOD
commonly uses the term reprogramming to refer to either transfers or reprogramming, as that latter term is defined by
GAO. See Department of Defense—Availability of Appropriations for Border Fence Construction, 2019 U.S. Comp.
Gen. LEXIS 276, at *14–15 n.6 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 5, 2019).
281 See supra note 253 and text.
282 E.g., Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, Pub. L. No. 116-6, Div. G, 133 Stat. 13, 395–400 (2019) (Department
of Transportation not including departmental administrations) (12 paragraphs).
283 Id., 133 Stat. at 19 (Transportation Security Administration) (three paragraphs).
284 Id., 133 Stat. at 164–65 (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
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annual appropriations act, Congress may decide to set aside budget authority by designating a
portion of that paragraph’s funds for a particular purpose.285 GAO considers each of these
designated sums as the equivalent of a separate appropriation for purposes of transfers.286
These account structures are an integral part of the federal budget process, and are used in a
variety of contexts,287 which, as relevant here, begins with the President proposing the text of
appropriations to Congress—in essence, submitting a draft appropriations act for all agencies.288
Each appropriations account typically “encompasses a number of activities or projects,”289 but the
text of the appropriations proposed by the President for inclusion in an appropriations account
will not usually delineate these various programs, projects, and activities. Instead, for annually
appropriated accounts, agencies provide this further detail to Congress in justification materials,
which the agencies develop in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB).290 To take a recent example, the President’s FY2020 budget submission asked for
roughly $1.1 billion for the “necessary expenses of the Management Directorate for operations
and support.”291 In turn, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) justified the President’s
request by explaining it planned to allocate such funds among eight programs, projects, and
activities that comprised the proposed operations-and-support appropriation.292 DHS planned to
allocate roughly $100 million of the $1.1 billion total to its Office of the Chief Readiness Support
Officer and another roughly $90 million to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.293 While
agency justification materials first propose funding allocations among the programs, projects, and
activities that, in the agency’s view, comprise the account, Congress may weigh in on funding
allocations at the program, project, and activity level through committee or conference reports
285 Such designations, which typically appear in the provisos of an appropriation (i.e., the clauses of an appropriation
that begin “provided” or “provided further”), are commonly referred to as “line items.” See GAO GLOSSARY, supra
note 19, at 64 (defining a “line item,” as used in the context of an appropriations act, as typically referring to “an
individual account or part of an account for which a specific amount is available”).
286 John D. Webster Dir., Financial Services Library of Congress, B-278121, 1997 U.S. Comp. Gen. LEXIS 381, at *7
(Comp. Gen. Nov. 7, 1997) (“The fact that an appropriation for a specific purpose, such as library materials, is included
as an earmark in a general appropriation does not deprive it of its character as an appropriation for the particular
purpose designated.”). Congress has adopted this same view for some of its appropriations acts. See, e.g.,
H.R.CON.REP. NO. 116-9, at 504 (2019) (directing DHS to adhere to GAO’s view when using its statutory transfer
authority).
287 For example, the Department of the Treasury uses this account structure in its annual publication of the receipts and
outlays of the United States. See DEP’T OF THE TREASURY, COMBINED STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND
BALANCES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT (2019). The President’s annual budget submission likewise uses this
account structure.
288 31 U.S.C. § 1105(a)(5) (requiring submission of “estimated expenditures and proposed appropriations the President
decides are necessary to support” executive branch agencies “in the fiscal year for which the budget is submitted and
the 4 fiscal years after that year”); see also id. (b) (concerning expenditures and proposed appropriations for the
legislative and executive branches).
289 GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 2. As GAO explains, there is no comprehensive definition of what constitutes a
“program” (or a project or an activity) in the appropriations-law context. A “program” is “[g]enerally, an organized set
of activities directed toward a common purpose or goal that an agency undertakes or proposes to carry out its
responsibilities. . . . It is used to describe an agency’s mission, functions, activities, services, projects, and processes.”
Id. at 79.
290 See OFFICE OF MGMT. & BUDGET, EXEC. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, CIRCULAR NO. A-11: PREPARATION, SUBMISSION,
AND EXECUTION OF THE BUDGET § 51.2 (rev. Dec. 2019) [hereinafter CIRCULAR NO. A-11].
291 OFFICE OF MGMT. & BUDGET, EXEC. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES, FISCAL YEAR 2020:
APPENDIX 490 (2019).
292 DEP’T OF HOMELAND SECURITY, FISCAL YEAR 2020 CONGRESSIONAL JUSTIFICATION: MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE at
MGMT-3 (2019) (presenting program activity structure for management directorate appropriations).
293 Id. at MGMT-O&S-4.
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that accompany an appropriations measure.294 (Congress could also direct funding allocations in
statute.) And while committee or conference reports may reflect that the appropriations
committees agree with the agency’s proposed allocations,295 the appropriations committees may
also indicate their rejection, in significant ways, of the agency’s proposed allocations.296
Thus, when Congress appropriates funds for an agency, it divides sums made available for
obligation by creating one or more appropriations accounts in statute, after the agency advises
Congress how it intends to allocate the funds of each account among different programs, projects,
and activities. These dividing lines—between appropriations, and within appropriations—create
two background mechanisms of agency control.297 Congress is free to displace or limit either of
these mechanisms by statute.
Statute generally prohibits the shifting of funds from one appropriation account to another, which
is referred to as a transfer.298 Specifically, “An amount available under law may be withdrawn
from one appropriation account and credited to another or to a working fund only when
authorized by law.”299 When Congress enacts a statute that authorizes a transfer, the statute is
generally referred to as transfer authority.300 The specific language used in the agency’s transfer
authority statute determines how much flexibility the agency has to both shift and use transferred
funds.301 “Except as specifically provided by law, an amount authorized to be” transferred “is
available for the same purpose and subject to the same limitations provided by the law
appropriating the amount.”302 Suppose, for example, that Congress appropriates funds for Account
A that are only available for one fiscal year, and the agency then validly transfers those funds to
Account B, the contents of which Congress made available “until expended” (i.e., on a “no-year”
basis).303 Unless the transfer authority statute specifies otherwise, the funds transferred from
294 See GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 80 (“For annually appropriated accounts, the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) and agencies identify PPAs by reference to committee reports and budget justifications.”). For a
discussion of appropriations report language development and components, see CRS Report R44124, Appropriations
Report Language: Overview of Development, Components, and Issues for Congress, by Jessica Tollestrup.
295 For example, the appropriations committees largely accepted DHS’s proposed allocations within the FY2020 DHS
Management Directorate’s Operations-and-Support appropriation. See 165 CONG. REC. H11,025-26 (daily ed. Dec. 17,
2019) (reflecting for the DHS Management Directorate’s Offices of the Chief Readiness Support Officer and Chief
Financial Officer slight increases in funding allocations from those set forth in DHS’s budget justification materials).
296 See, e.g., id. at H11,033 (reducing, by roughly $765 million, funding allocations for the Enforcement and Removal
Operations program of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Operations and Support appropriations
account, a 14.7% reduction from the level proposed by DHS).
297 The phrase “budget execution” describes the period during which an agency obligates appropriated funds. See GAO
GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 111 (“An agency’s task during this phase is to spend the money Congress has given it to
carry out the objectives of its program legislation in accordance with fiscal statutes and appropriations, while at the
same time beginning” to formulate its budget request for the next fiscal year).
298 See id. at 95.
299 31 U.S.C § 1532.
300 See GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 96 (“Statutory authority provided by Congress to transfer budget authority
from one appropriation or fund account to another.”). Transfer authority may be established in an agency’s authorizing
statutes. See, e.g., 22 U.S.C. § 2360 (providing transfer authority under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961). Transfer
authority may also be enacted in an appropriations acts. See infra note 301.
301 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, Pub. L. No. 116-94, Div. A, Title III, § 312 (2019) (providing the
U.S. Department of Education (ED) with general transfer authority of up to specified amounts and subject to the
proviso that the transfer authority may not be used to create a new program, project, or activity for which no funds were
provided in the Act).
302 31 U.S.C. § 1532.
303 See GAO GLOSSARY, supra note 19, at 22.
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Account A to Account B remain available only for the one fiscal year.304 Without transfer
authority, an agency cannot “raid[] one appropriation account” to “credit another.”305 Thus, if
Congress’s goal is to deny agency flexibility in shifting funds between accounts, and no
applicable transfer authority already exists, Congress need not take any specific action. The
background prohibition already in statute306 will tie the agency’s hands.
By contrast, unless Congress directs otherwise, an agency has discretion to allocate the funds of a
single appropriation among the various programs, projects, and activities that the appropriation
could serve, including by allocating the funds in a way that departs from how the agency told
Congress it would allocate funds. The Supreme Court described the extent of an agency’s
discretion in Lincoln v. Vigil, explaining that Congress’s decision to give an agency “a lump-sum
appropriation reflects a congressional recognition that an agency must be allowed flexibility to
shift funds within a particular appropriation account so that the agency can make necessary
adjustments for unforeseen developments and changing requirements.”307
In Lincoln, Native American children sued the Indian Health Service (IHS), challenging the
decision to end its Indian Children’s Program (the Program), which provided direct clinical
services in the southwest United States. IHS chose a model in which reassigned staff served only
as consultants for nationwide programs.308 The Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower
court decision requiring IHS to reinstate the Program. The Court explained that the IHS’s
“allocation of funds from a lump-sum appropriation” (i.e., its decision to discontinue the regional
program and fund the nationwide program) was not subject to judicial review because it was a
decision “committed to agency discretion by law.”309 Courts cannot review an agency’s funding
allocation decisions because they “require[] a complicated balancing of a number of factors
which are peculiarly within [the agency’s] expertise.”310 When an agency makes an allocation
decision, it makes a choice between competing policy interests, and that type of choice is not
generally subject to judicial review.311 And this was true even though the IHS had “repeatedly
apprised Congress of the Program’s continuing operation.”312
The same discretion exists, more or less, in all appropriations.313 Lincoln presented the case of an
agency that received all of its appropriations in a single account available for all “expenses
304 See Matter of United States Capitol Police—Advance to Volpe Center Working Capital Fund, B-319349, 2010 U.S.
Comp. Gen. LEXIS 109, at *8–9 (Comp. Gen. June 4, 2010).
305 Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Cent. Sch. Dist. v. United States, 48 F.3d 1166, 1171 (Fed Cir. 1995) (internal
quotation marks omitted) (explaining that ED correctly declined to transfer funds from one appropriation account to
another to make up for a funding shortfall in an “entitlement” funding stream that benefited a local school district
because doing so would ignore an express congressional determination of the amounts available for the entitlement
program).
306 See 31 U.S.C. § 1352.
307 508 U.S. 182, 193 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted).
308 See id. at 185–89.
309 Id. at 193 (internal quotation marks omitted).
310 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
311 Id. (“[T]he agency is far better equipped than the courts to deal with the many variables involved in the proper
ordering of its priorities.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Int’l Union, UAW v. Donovan, 746 F.2d 855,
862–63 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Scalia, J.) (“The distribution of public funds among competing social programs is an
archetypically political task, involving the application of value judgments and predictions to innumerable alternatives,
as opposed to the application of accepted principles to a binary determin
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