Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 513.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

[09-11-00 13:25:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

468

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of Scalia, J.

were for “works of purely private or local interest, in no
sense national,” 4 Cong. Rec. 5628. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt impounded funds appropriated for a ﬂood control
reservoir and levee in Oklahoma. See Act of Aug. 18, 1941,
ch. 377, 55 Stat. 638, 645; Hearings on S. 373 before the Ad
Hoc Subcommittee on Impoundment of Funds of the Com-
mittee on Government Operations and the Subcommittee on
Separation of Powers of the Senate Committee on the Judi-
ciary, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 848–849 (1973). President Tru-
man ordered the impoundment of hundreds of millions of dol-
lars that had been appropriated for military aircraft. See
Act of Oct. 29, 1949, ch. 787, 63 Stat. 987, 1013; Public Papers
of the Presidents of the United States, Harry S. Truman,
1949, pp. 538–539 (W. Reid ed. 1964). President Nixon, the
Mahatma Gandhi of all impounders, asserted at a press con-
ference in 1973 that his “constitutional right” to impound
appropriated funds was “absolutely clear.” The President’s
News Conference of Jan. 31, 1973, 9 Weekly Comp. of Pres.
Doc. 109–110 (1973). Our decision two years later in Train
v. City of New York, 420 U. S. 35 (1975), proved him wrong,
but it implicitly conﬁrmed that Congress may confer discre-
tion upon the Executive to withhold appropriated funds,
even funds appropriated for a speciﬁc purpose. The statute
at issue in Train authorized spending “not to exceed” speci-
ﬁed sums for certain projects, and directed that such “[s]ums
authorized to be appropriated . . . shall be allotted” by the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, 33
U. S. C. §§ 1285, 1287 (1970 ed., Supp. III). Upon enactment
of this statute, the President directed the Administrator to
allot no more than a certain part of the amount authorized.
420 U. S., at 40. This Court held, as a matter of statutory
interpretation, that the statute did not grant the Executive
discretion to withhold the funds, but required allotment of
the full amount authorized.

Id., at 44–47.

The short of the matter is this: Had the Line Item Veto
Act authorized the President to “decline to spend” any item