The White House budget office has taken down its website where approvals of federal funding provided in appropriations laws are statutorily required to be posted for public viewing, a move likely to face major blowback from members of Congress and government watchdogs.
As of Monday morning, the Office of Management and Budget was no longer making “apportionments” of previously enacted appropriations available on the website it set up for that purpose after Congress mandated the requirement starting in 2022. The site now simply says: “Page not found.”
Sources familiar with the decision said it was made because preliminary information was being disclosed on the site. They added that making apportionments public could include sensitive data that might pose a risk to national security.
Disclosures of apportionment data can be premature because they represent interim decisions which are subject to change, the sources said. Making the information public could also undermine the OMB’s relationships with agencies and ability to supervise federal spending, they said, adding that apportionment data would still be available to lawmakers if needed.
But open government groups seem likely to challenge the decision in court, given it appears to flout the 2022 law.
“This is in direct violation of federal law,” said Faith Williams, director of the effective and accountable government program at the Project on Government Oversight, known as POGO. “The apportionments database is a critical tool for Congress and the public to hold the executive branch accountable for its spending.”
A House Democratic aide disputed the contention that published apportionments could expose sensitive internal agency deliberations. The aide said those apportionments represent final decisions subject to the statutory disclosure law as well as Freedom of Information Act requirements, as opposed to the back and forth between agencies and OMB before a decision is made, which is not.
Also, if any apportionment data is sensitive enough to be classified, that information is not disclosed on the public site, the aide said, calling Monday’s action “deeply suspicious.”
Roots in Ukraine aid fight
The fiscal 2022 wrapup spending package, signed in March 2022, initially established the requirement for public posting of apportionments, which are how the OMB parcels out available funding to federal agencies to ensure they do not burn through the money too quickly.
The 2022 law required the budget office to establish its apportionments website within 120 days of enactment, with each apportionment document posted within two days, along with any footnotes and an explanation for those footnotes. Any change in the delegation of apportionment authority to different officials within the budget office would also have to be disclosed.
In the fiscal 2023 omnibus package enacted in late 2022, lawmakers inserted language making clear their intent was for the OMB to continue to “operate and maintain the automated system” required under the previous spending law in that fiscal year “and each fiscal year thereafter.”
The law was in part a response to actions taken during the first Trump administration, whereby then-Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, through delegation of authority to political appointees at the agency, directed agencies to withhold the obligation of funds to Ukraine using apportionment footnotes. Vought is once again the White House budget office director after his party-line Senate confirmation vote earlier this year.
Democrats first raised the issue as an item they wanted to include in 2020 spending legislation, but President Donald Trump, then in his first term, threatened to veto it. So Democrats bided their time and waited out Trump, getting it over the finish line after the 2020 election, when they controlled both chambers and the White House.
“The American people have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent, but it is clear that Russ Vought and President Trump do not care about transparency or following the law I authored,” House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement. “You only hide this information if you want to break the law without accountability.”
Advocates for transparency in government hailed the apportionments database as a major step forward at the time. And it’s taken on more importance this year, amid the Trump administration’s various executive orders and other actions to delay or withhold funds for activities deemed out of step with its priorities.
Earlier this year, CQ Roll Call and later ProPublica used public apportionments data to report on previously enacted funding being freed up for the U.S. DOGE Service — more popularly known as the Department of Government Efficiency.
Through the beginning of March, the White House had apportioned over $40 million to the Elon Musk-led “DOGE,” according to data compiled by OpenOMB, a website maintained by the Protect Democracy Project, a nonprofit.
“Congress passed a law to make apportionments public specifically in response to the first Trump administration’s illegal impoundment actions,” said Charlie Ellsworth, a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., now a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group. “Now, under the cover of darkness, Trump can cut programs serving Americans while awarding contracts to Elon Musk-owned companies.”
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