01.27.25

Vice Chair Murray, Ranking Member DeLauro Raise Alarm on New OMB Memoranda, Trump Administration’s Efforts to Defy Federal Law, Constitution to Withhold Approved Federal Funding

 

WASHINGTON — Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro today wrote to Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Matthew J. Vaeth raising the alarm on President Trump's unlawful executive orders and the new memoranda issued by OMB on Monday directing agencies to withhold vast swaths of approved federal funding.

 

In the letter, Murray and DeLauro wrote, “As leaders of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, we write with extreme alarm about the Administration’s efforts to undermine Congress’s power of the purse, threaten our national security, and deny resources for states, localities, American families, and businesses.” 

 

“The President has issued a number of Executive Orders to unilaterally freeze or contravene critical funding provided in bipartisan laws, sowing chaos across states, families, and communities. In that vein, you have now issued a series of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memoranda that only further disarray and inefficiency—in particular, M-25-13, pursuant to which agencies will be ordered to stop vast swaths of federal financial assistance to states, families, and communities as of 5:00 PM ET on Tuesday, January 28,” continued Murray and DeLauro. “The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country.  We write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.”

 

“While we may have strong policy disagreements, we should all be united in upholding our nation’s laws and the Constitution.  We will be relentless in our work with members on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers to protect Congress’s power of the purse. The law is the law—and we demand you in your role as Acting OMB Director reverse course to ensure requirements enacted into law are faithfully met and the nation’s spending laws are implemented as intended,” concluded the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.   

 

The full text of the letter is here. Fact sheets detailing how presidents lack power to unilaterally override spending laws and deny enacted funding to communities through impoundment can be found here and here.

 

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