Following impoundments threat, new bill wants senior execs to get appropriations training, or else

Following months of contention between the White House, the Department of Government Efficiency and certain members of Congress over whether the executive branch will spend federal funding how legislators have appropriated it, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is ready to take agency leaders back to school. 

Kaptur — along with House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. — introduced the Appropriations Compliance and Training Act (H.R. 4230) on Friday, requiring that federal employees that are GS-11 or higher take annual training on the budget process. 

“We set policy, we provide direction and we allocate funds. Then, based on those policies, directions and allocations, the Article II branch, the Executive branch, can Execute what we, the Congress, dictate on behalf of We the People,” Kaptur said from the House floor Friday when discussing the bill. “Instead of recognizing our authority, DOGE, Elon Musk, [Office of Management and Budget director] Russell Vought and the rest of the Executive Branch have ignored the will of the people.

“They withhold funds and cancel projects, they move money from one purpose to another without legal authority and they just spend the money however they want, regardless of what Congress has directed.”

Kaptur’s bill would require covered federal employees to take part in a certified training discussing everything from “constitutional and statutory framework governing the obligation and expenditure of appropriated funds” to statutes covered by the Antideficiency Act, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, other relevant appropriation regulations and all possible penalties for violating appropriations law. 

Agency heads would then have to submit a report to OMB listing each employee who completed the training, starting within 60 days after their first appointment and annually thereafter. If an employee goes more than 45 days without completing their annual training, the legislation stipulates they would be suspended from financial decision-making and supervising budget execution.

Performance bonuses and pay increases may also be withheld from any employee not complying with the training. If the employee hasn’t completed the training within more than 60 days, they will be suspended “from accessing any agency information technology systems and computer networks, including email and financial management systems,” until they comply.

The legislation comes as Vought has recently said the Trump administration is considering withholding certain funding for federal agencies until Sept. 30, through the use of so-called "pocket recissions." 

The process would allow OMB to direct agencies not to spend funding proposed for rescission for a 45-day period while Congress considers the White House’s request to permanently rescind the funding.

But if OMB deploys pocket recissions with 45 days or less left in the fiscal year, the funding will automatically expire on Sept. 30. Vought told the Senate Appropriations Committee last week that “we have, under the law, numerous options with regard to how to achieve savings, including rescissions that are timed at the end of the fiscal year.”

Kaptur’s bill has been referred to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.