Source: https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/35-impoundment-of-appropriated-funds.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 16:44:06+00:00

Document:
Generally speaking, the law recognized two types of impoundments: “routine” or “programmatic” reservations of budget authority to provide for the inevitable contingencies that arise in administering congressionally-funded programs and “policy” decisions that are ordinarily intended to advance the broader fiscal or other policy objectives of the executive branch contrary to congressional wishes in appropriating funds in the first place.
With passage of the Act, the constitutional issues faded into the background; Presidents regularly reported rescission proposals, and Congress responded by enacting its own rescissions, usually topping the Presidents’. The entire field was, of course, confounded by the application of the other part of the 1974 law, the Budget Act, which restructured how budgets were received and acted on in Congress, and by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.727 This latter law was designed as a deficit-reduction forcing mechanism, so that unless President and Congress cooperate each year to reduce the deficit by prescribed amounts, a “sequestration” order would reduce funds down to a mandated figure.728 Dissatisfaction with the amount of deficit reduction continues to stimulate discussion of other means, such as “expedited” rescission and the line-item veto, many of which may raise some constitutional issues.
711 1 J. Richardson, supra at 348, 360.
712 History and law is much discussed in Executive Impoundment of Appropriated Funds: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 92d Congress, 1st Sess. (1971); Impoundment of Appropriated Funds by the President: Hearings Before the Senate Government Operations Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Impoundment of Funds, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973). The most thorough study of the legal and constitutional issues, informed through historical analysis, is Abascal & Kramer, Presidential Impoundment Part I: Historical Genesis and Constitutional Framework, 62 Geo. L. J. 1549 (1974); Abascal & Kramer, Presidential Impoundment Part II: Judicial and Legislative Response, 63, id. at 149 (1974). See generally L. Fisher, Presidential Spending Power (1975).
713 There is no satisfactory definition of impoundment. Legislation enacted by Congress uses the phrase “deferral of budget authority” which is defined to include: “(A) withholding or delaying the obligation or expenditure of budget authority (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) provided for projects or activities; or (B) any other type of Executive action or inaction which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of budget authority, including authority to obligate by contract in advance of appropriations as specifically authorized by law.” 2 U.S.C. § 682(1).
714 Impoundment of Appropriated Funds by the President: Hearings Before the Senate Government Operations Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Impoundment of Funds, 93d Congress, 1st Sess. (1973), 358 (then-Deputy Attorney General Sneed).
715 Id. at 1–6 (Senator Ervin). Of course, it was long ago established that Congress could direct the expenditure of at least some moneys from the Treasury, even over the opposition of the President. Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 524 (1838).
716 Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975); Train v. Campaign Clean Water, 420 U.S. 136 (1975). See also State Highway Comm’n of Missouri v. Volpe, 479 F.2d 1099 (8th Cir. 1973); Pennsylvania v. Lynn, 501 F.2d 848 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (the latter case finding statutory discretion not to spend).
717 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, Pub. L. 93–344, title X, §§ 1001–1017, 88 Stat. 332 (1974), as amended, 2 U.S.C. §§ 681–88.
718 Originally passed as the Act of Feb. 27, 1906, ch. 510, § 3, 34 Stat. 27, 48. The provisions as described in the text were added in the General Appropriations Act of 1951, ch. 896, § 1211(c)(2), 64 Stat. 595, 765. The amendments made by the Impoundment Control Act, were § 1002, 88 Stat. 332, 31 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1512. On the Anti-Deficiency Act generally, see Stith, Congress’s Power of the Purse, 97 Yale L. J. 1343, 1370–1377 (1988).
719 L. Fisher, supra at 154–57.
720 31 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1) (present version). Congressional intent was to prohibit the use of apportionment as an instrument of policymaking. 120 Cong. Rec. 7658 (1974) (Senator Muskie); id. at 20472–20473 (Senators Ervin and McClellan).
721 §§ 1011(1), 1012, 1013, 88 Stat. 333–34, 2 U.S.C. §§ 628(1), 683, 684.
722 2 U.S.C. § 683.
723 § 1013, 88 Stat. 334. Because the Act was a compromise between the House of Representatives and the Senate, numerous questions were left unresolved; one important one was whether the President could use the deferral avenue as a means of effectuating policy impoundments or whether rescission proposals were the sole means. The subsequent events described in the text mooted that argument.
724 462 U.S. 919 (1983).
725 City of New Haven v. United States, 809 F.2d 900 (D.C. Cir. 1987).
726 Pub. L. 100–119, title II, § 206(a), 101 Stat. 785, 2 U.S.C. § 684.
727 Pub. L. 99–177, 99 Stat. 1037, codified as amended in titles 2, 31, and 42 U.S.C., with the relevant portions to this discussion at 2 U.S.C. §§ 901 et seq.
728 See Stith, Rewriting the Fiscal Constitution: The Case of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, 76 Calif. L. Rev. 593 (1988).

References: § 682
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 § 3
 § 1211
 § 1002
 § 1512
 § 683
 § 1013
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 § 206
 § 684