A White House official said Friday that the White House’s roughly $5 billion foreign aid pocket rescission package, which will not require congressional approval, is on solid legal ground.
The official joined reporters on a press call after Trump signed a pocket rescissions package Thursday night through the Impoundment Control Act, the first time a president has done so in 50 years.
“Just to give you a rundown of some of the things that this would defund: $3.2 billion for USAID development assistance–has funded things like $400 million for climate– global climate projects, building a greenhouse gas calculator, promoting vegan food in Zambia, electric buses in Rwanda, research on feeding insect powders to children in Madagascar, $22 billion for the gender equality and women’s empowerment hub,” the official said.
“There’s a number of provisions in the law set by Congress that are what we would call earmarks that we’re now at a point in the fiscal season where we don’t have an ability to spend outside of these other than to not spend them,” they added. “There’s nothing that we can do within these accounts, because of the way they’re written, to shift them to things that the president would support in the foreign aid space. And just to give you an example of some of these things: $340 million for global climate adaptation, clean energy, sustainable landscapes; $297 million for foreign biodiversity programs; $40 million for development initiative ventures; $3 million to unionize workers in Bangladesh.”
Because the funds could not be repurposed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wanted to ensure they were sent to Congress as part of a rescissions package, the official said. The Trump administration notably sent a rescissions package to Congress earlier this year, which was approved by lawmakers. However, as this is a pocket recissions package, Congressional approval is not required, and the allocated funds will sunset at the end of the year, per the official.
“What is different about this versus the earlier package is that it is a pocket rescission. This is not something where we submit a rescission and we’re expecting Congress to vote,” the official told reporters. “This is a unique aspect of the Impoundment Control Act, where it looks the same as a rescission package, but the fact that it’s at the end of the fiscal year, within 45 days of the fiscal year, by virtue of you sending it up, it will automatically sunset at the end of the fiscal year.”
“This is something that we’ve begun to send up to the Hill. We’ll continue those conversations with the legislators. But this is something that does not need a vote…these savings will automatically accrue to taxpayers at the end of the fiscal year,” the official continued.
The official emphasized that the administration is on “firm legal ground,” adding that while the administration is not “big fans” of the General Accounting Office (GAO), the GAO has previously stated that pocket rescissions are a legal path.
“We’re not obviously big fans of the General Accounting Office, but the General Accounting Office themselves, in the very first years after the Impoundment Control Act was put into place–again, the Impoundment Control Act is not something that we’re huge fans of, but we have been encouraged by Congress to use the Impoundment Control Act to send up rescissions, in this case, a pocket rescission–the General Accounting Office said that this was a legal path,” the official said.
“They weren’t wild about it, but they said Congress should consider closing this path off because future presidents would use it, and then when there were more than one opportunities where this was specifically the type of bill that would be used for GAO’s recommendation to be put into law and Congress chose not to do this,” they added. “So GAO has now changed their position. As you probably can tell, GAO changes their position with every administration. If there are Republicans in office, they decide against us on every single question that they consider, and if a Democrat is in office, they take the exact opposite position. They’re like the wind. So we are on very firm legal footing, and we will be making that case, and I think the courts, if they do consider this, will decide along the lines of what we’ve articulated.”
The official also said the Democrats’ claims that the administration is looking for a government shutdown with this maneuver are false.
“Some have said, ‘Well, this is the administration saying they want a shutdown.’ That is not true. This, in some respects, we believe will help with those members who are not normally accustomed or willing to vote for a continuing resolution that will, in fact, keep the government open,” the official told reporters. “So we believe this is in no way contributing to the argument put out there by Democrats that this will lead to a government shutdown.”
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