Senate Democrats’ attempt to bar President Donald Trump from clawing back $810 million in funding approved by Congress was blocked by a Republican senator on Wednesday.
Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Washington) and Jeff Merkley (Oregon) sought to pass a bill that would have blocked the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved funding for several programs, including those for immigrant services, climate change and civil rights for minority groups, among others.
“Trump is taking the bipartisan funding that we passed, funding the Democrats and Republicans agreed on that he signed into law, and he’s now ripping out the pages he doesn’t like,” Murray said on the Senate floor Wednesday evening.
Merkley attempted to pass the measure through unanimous consent, an expedited process that can be killed by any one senator objecting. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) objected, ending the effort.
Under the Impoundment Control Act, Congress normally must approve White House requests for rescissions — or refusals to spend money appropriated by Congress. But by submitting the request just days before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the Trump administration is employing what’s known as a “pocket rescission,” essentially freezing the money until the deadline to spend the appropriated funds passes, so Congress will not have enough time to try to force the money to be spent.
Johnson defended Trump’s pocket rescission, as he said he favors reducing spending. He also said that while the Impoundment Control Act leaves some ambiguity around rescissions, he sees Merkley and Murray’s bill as making matters worse.
“It shouldn’t surprise anybody that Congress wrote an awful law that’s hard to interpret,” Johnson said. “It’ll probably have to be all sorted out by the Supreme Court. The modification that the senator from Oregon is proposing certainly wouldn’t fix it.”
This is the second time the White House has done a pocket rescission. Trump used the maneuver last year to eliminate $5 billion in funding for foreign aid.
The Supreme Court allowed Trump’s 2025 pocket rescission to proceed, though its justification hinged on the president’s wide-ranging authority to oversee foreign affairs. Trump’s latest cuts differ from last year’s, because they largely impact domestic spending.
This year, some of the White House’s cuts include:
- $567 million for the Department of Health and Human Services, which the White House said “previously went to pro-illegal immigration programs and Non-Governmental Organizations that provided services to refugees, asylees, and other non-citizens.”
- $15 million from a Justice Department agency designed to address conflicts in communities relating to disputes based on race, gender, sexual orientation or other protected groups.
- $28 million for health and research programs that the administration deemed “wasteful,” including programs aimed to reduce carbon emissions and research related to gender transition care, among other cuts.
The administration’s pocket recessions have drawn bipartisan backlash. Senate appropriators from both parties argued that the administration’s decision circumvents Congress’s power of the purse and will make it harder to negotiate bipartisan government funding bills.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has previously said that pocket rescissions are illegal. The bill Murray and Merkley sought to advance on Wednesday would have banned any president from submitting rescission requests less than 90 days before the funds are slated to expire.
While multiple Republican Senate appropriators expressed concerns about the administration’s use of pocket rescissions, there was no clear consensus on how to address the issue moving forward.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) suggested that one way to achieve clarity on the legality of the practice might be the courts, and said GAO could sue the administration. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said lawmakers could add language to fiscal year 2027 appropriations bills that explicitly prevent pocket rescissions.
Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that Democrats wanted a provision to bar the administration from pocket rescissions included in the temporary stopgap government funding bill that Congress passed earlier this month, but Republicans refused.
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