On April 26, 2021, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced his intent to restore one of Congress’ constitutional powers, the power to approve congressionally-directed spending items, and to do so with enhanced transparency and accountability.  Accordingly, in addition to accepting programmatic requests which the Committee does every year, the Senate Appropriations Committee will on a bipartisan basis accept requests for congressionally directed spending items for fiscal year 2022.

The Committee will carefully review all member requests. Only those requests that comply with Committee and Senate rules and are deemed appropriate for federal support will be considered for funding.  A link to the list of reforms can be found here.  Chairman Leahy’s remarks on congressionally directed spending can be found here.  A link to general guidance for Senators making requests to the Appropriations Committee, including deadlines for receiving requests, can be found here.    

In a commitment to transparency, all members will be required to post any requests they make for congressionally directed spending to their Senate office website.  The Appropriations Committee will update this page with links to each post when they become available. 

Member requests can be found here.