Impoundment: Unlawful Stealing of Funds Promised to Americans
Impoundment—stealing funds promised to the American people—has always been unlawful. The Trump Administration, including OMB Director Russ Vought, fabricated the existence of an inherent Presidential power to impound, something the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, and the Supreme Court of the United States have all disavowed.
President Trump and Russ Vought have dispatched hordes of unelected and unaccountable political appointees to choke off investments made to the American people. The Trump Administration has blatantly and repeatedly violated the law to steal American taxpayer dollars by depriving communities of the promised investments they deserve. Every instance of Republicans unilaterally stealing investments from American families and businesses directly affects individuals across the nation.
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) released a fact sheet detailing how the Trump Administration under the recently fired and forever-disgraced Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and making Americans less safe since day one.
Since the day they took office, President Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought have been breaking the law, blocking Congressionally-approved public funding, and depriving American communities of crucial resources that were allocated on a bipartisan basis. A new fact sheet released today by House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) lays out some of the most flagrant violations of the law perpetrated by President Trump and Russ Vought.
Today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released updated information detailing at least $410 billion in federal funding that President Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought are holding up and denying communities across the country.
Since taking office, President Trump has trampled over our nation's laws and choked off critical investments that families, businesses, and local governments in every zip code in America are counting on.
House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) issued the following statement on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought’s unlawful effort to unilaterally cancel appropriated funding.
Today, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) issued a statement following a report in the Washington Post that confirmed the Trump administration planned to use more than $300 million in taxpayer money to fund the president’s billionaire ballroom, and has already spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on its construction, while brazenly lying to the American people the whole time.
Today, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) issued a statement after news broke that the Trump administration was taking yet another illegal step in their broader illegal effort to dismantle the Department of Education. The recent move removes special education and civil rights programs from the Department of Education and puts them in other agencies.
House Republicans Endorsed Giving Trump Political Appointees Unilateral Veto Over All Grant Spending
This week, House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee were given two opportunities to denounce Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought’s shameful attempt to codify his power grab and normalize the White House’s illegal withholding of life-saving federal aid based on whether or not the recipient state voted for President Trump.
During today’s House Appropriations Committee markup of the 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies funding bill, Democrats fought against Republicans’ extreme bill that puts health coverage for millions of Americans at risk, eviscerates public education and job training, and eliminates funding for reproductive health.
Today, the House passed a reconciliation bill to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol with just under $70 billion with no strings attached, over 4 times their combined annual budgets. With the passage of this bill, Republicans have voted to provide DHS more than $260 billion in the first two years of the Trump administration.
Today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released updated information detailing at least $410 billion in federal funding that President Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought are holding up and denying communities across the country.
More than 100 tribal representatives and organizations will testify before the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee this week, in one of the largest collective testimonies by Native communities in recent committee history.
For weeks, I have been sounding the alarm on the devastating impacts that the Trump administration’s policies are having on our communities—from our farmers and educators to our scientists and small businesses. I hope the tribal witnesses we’ll hear from will share how this administration is affecting the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous people in their communities — and across the country.
Ranking Member DeLauro regarding the Jan. 13 editorial, “Thumbs ups and thumbs downs on Trump’s picks."
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the full committee markup of the fiscal year 2027 Homeland Security funding bill:
Congressman Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, prepared the following remarks for delivery at the full committee markup of the fiscal year 2027 Homeland Security funding bill:
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee, gave remarks during the full committee markup of the fiscal year 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies funding bill. Below are excerpts from her opening statement, as delivered.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks during the full committee markup of the fiscal year 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies funding bill:
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro delivered the following remarks at the fiscal year 2027 Homeland Security subcommittee markup:
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-09), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to issue a legal decision on whether President Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE) violated key appropriations laws in shifting hundreds of millions of dollars provided for research and development of clean energy sources in the full-year continuing resolution (CR) President Trump signed into law in March and steering those funds to energy sources it favors.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair, sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought calling out the Trump administration’s unacceptable failure to submit detailed spend plans for each agency to the Appropriations Committees, as the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025 requires by law.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, alongside Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today sent a letter to the Interim Agency Head of AmeriCorps calling for the immediate reversal of layoffs and grant terminations that have debilitated the agency’s core functions and run counter to its longstanding, bipartisan support in Congress.
The Litigation and Rapid Response Task Force led 192 House Democrats in filing an amicus brief challenging the Trump Administration’s efforts to close the Department of Education in the matter of the State of New York v. Linda McMahon. A case in which 20 states moved to sue the administration for its plans to place fifty percent of the Department’s workforce on administrative leave, effectively shuttering a congressionally authorized agency by way of executive fiat.
Toledo, Ohio — Today, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting it review whether a recent order issued by Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright that seeks to accelerate project execution might actually lead to more cost overruns, project delays and failures, and waste, fraud, and abuse at America’s national labs.