119th Congress

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 illegal freeze of nearly $15 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for research grants.

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.

The Litigation Task Force led 157 House Democrats in filing an amicus brief challenging the Office of Management and Budget’s unlawful freezing of congressional appropriated funds in order to further President Trump’s reckless agenda. Their argument makes clear that the President cannot unilaterally bypass the Congress—and thereby the will of the American people—and withhold appropriated funds based on his own priorities or policy preferences. It also underscores that under the United States Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to appropriate funds and to make laws governing their use.