Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1023_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

propriations  bill  decreased  the  salaries  for  federal  inter-
preters  (from  $400  to  $300)  and  changed  how  the  agency 
would  distribute  any  “ ‘additional  pay’ ”  (from  “ ‘all  emolu-
ments  and  allowances  whatsoever’ ”  to  payments  at  the 
agency head’s discretion).  109 U. S., at 147, 149.  And in 
Fisher, Congress altered an obligation to pay judges $3,000 
per year by providing that a lesser appropriation would be
“ ‘in  full  compensation’ ”  for  services  rendered  in  the  next 
fiscal year.  109 U. S., at 144.9 

The appropriations bills here created no such conflict as 
in Mitchell and Fisher.  The riders did not reference §1342’s
payment formula at all, let alone “irreconcilabl[y]” change 
it.  Mitchell, 109 U. S., at 150.  Nor did they provide that
Risk  Corridors  payments  from  profitable  plans  would  be
“ ‘in  full  compensation’ ”  of  the  Government’s  obligation  to 
unprofitable plans.  Fisher, 109 U. S., at 146.  Instead, the 
riders here must be taken at face value: as a “mere omission 
to appropriate a sufficient sum.”  Vulte, 233 U. S., at 515. 
Congress  could  have  used  the  kind  of  language  we  have 
held  to  effect  a  repeal  or  suspension—indeed,  it  did  so  in 
other provisions of the relevant appropriations bills.  See, 
e.g., §716, 128 Stat. 2163 (“None of the funds appropriated
or otherwise made available by this or any other Act shall
be used . . . ”); §714, 129 Stat. 2275 (same); §714, 131 Stat. 
168 (same).  But for the Risk Corridors program, it did not. 

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9 The Federal Circuit has also recognized that Congress may override 
a  statutory  payment  formula  through  an  appropriation  that  expressly
earmarks a lesser amount for that payment obligation in the upcoming 
fiscal year.  See Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School Dist. v. 
United States, 48 F. 3d 1166, 1169–1171 (1995); see also GAO Redbook 
2–62  (discussing  Highland  Falls  and  noting  that  earmarking  a  lesser 
amount can create an “irreconcilable conflict” with a statutory payment 
formula).  Perhaps because these cases do not involve an earmark to sat-
isfy an incompatible payment formula, the Federal Circuit did not rely 
on Highland Falls below.