Top Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, alarmed by President’s Trump’s moves to withhold funding approved by Congress, have teamed up to add new safeguards to next year’s spending bills that would ensure the Trump administration allocates federal dollars as lawmakers intend.
The little-noticed moves are part of a quiet escalation in the battle between the legislative and executive branches over federal spending powers. Ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline for funding the government, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee have said they must take extra steps to assert their authority over the allocation of government dollars, after the Trump administration has repeatedly questioned and defied congressional instructions on spending.
“In the past, the agency and department secretaries have always, or almost always, followed that guidance,” Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who leads the committee, said in an interview. “But in this administration, it is clear that we need to move far more of that language on how the money should be spent into the bills themselves.”
The changes may not survive negotiations with the House, where Republicans have been far more deferential to Mr. Trump. And they may not have a chance to be enacted, given the White House’s determination to have its way on spending. But proponents say that at the very least, the safeguards could strengthen the position of Congress in future legal battles over funding.
The guardrails are largely technical and include putting instructions into legislative text that would have previously been spelled out in nonbinding reports.
For example, officials say that detailed tables on spending for major agencies such as the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services are now being added to the text of the bills themselves, to try to assure that the funds are used for their specified purposes. The guardrails also include significant new requirements for reporting to Congress on terminating contracts and grant awards, as well as for making substantial reductions in the federal work force.
The changes come as the White House Office of Management and Budget and its director, Russell T. Vought, have sought to assert extraordinary executive branch control over spending, arguing that the levels set by Congress are a ceiling, not a floor. Mr. Vought has said that congressional negotiations need to be less bipartisan, and has called the decades-old budget law empowering Congress on spending unconstitutional.
That claim is disputed on Capitol Hill, where the congressional power of the purse is considered paramount.
“I believe members of Congress who know their districts and states should decide how taxpayer dollars get spent — not faceless political appointees, and not any president who wrongly believes they hold the power of the purse instead of Congress,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. She said she would continue to press for more restraints on the administration.
In March, Ms. Murray joined Ms. Collins in a letter to Mr. Vought protesting his unilateral decision to not spend nearly $3 billion in emergency funds out of a $12 billion allocation by Congress, arguing that he was overstepping his power.
Along with Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, they also challenged the budget office’s decision to take down a legally required website tracking the administration’s disbursement of money. An appeals court recently upheld a ruling ordering the White House to put it back online.
The website has since been restored, though Democrats say that not all the required information is available. Ms. Murray said the website shows that the White House has tried to “to secretly and illegally exert even more control over funding approved by Congress.”
Even with the stronger language being added in the Senate, lawmakers cannot be certain that the White House will follow their directives. But Ms. Collins noted that the new safeguards would bolster Congress in any legal fight with the White House over intent with funding. “Then there is much stronger grounds if there is a lawsuit,” she said.
As August winds down, Congress is about to enter a critical phase of its spending debate ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. For the first time in years, the Senate earlier this month considered individual spending bills on the floor, and approved three relatively noncontentious measures on military construction, agriculture programs and congressional funding.
When Congress returns after Labor Day, lawmakers would like to make more progress, though approving and sending the 12 annual spending bills to Mr. Trump is not a realistic possibility. That means Congress will either have to agree to extend funding at its current levels, or the government will shut down.
Other factors could intercede to complicate the fight. Senate Republicans have said that they intend to try to change rules governing confirmations in order to clear a backlog of nominees, a decision likely to embroil the chamber in a partisan fight. And the White House is threatening to cancel more congressionally approved funding by the end of the fiscal year, which could upend critical spending talks.
Ms. Collins said the White House should refrain from doing so, and leave the cutting to Congress.
“We understand that spending needs to change over time, but you don’t exclude the appropriations process,” she said.
She and other lawmakers say they believe their best case for protecting the spending power of Congress is to pass the annual spending bills with specific instructions, and have Mr. Trump sign them into law. Operating under what is known as a continuing resolution, as the government is now, provides the White House with more discretion to determine spending levels. Members of Congress say they want to limit that flexibility.
“If Congress thinks we should be more specific — and I happen to think we should be more specific with our appropriations directions — then we have to pass appropriations bills, not a continuing resolution, for the coming year,” said Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota and a member of the Appropriations Committee.
If those bills pass and are signed into law, Ms. Collins said, “it is the way the system is supposed to work.”