Overview of Appropriations Law

This first chapter introduces basic appropriations law terminology and concepts. Readers unfamiliar with appropriations and their use would be well served to read this chapter in its entirety before addressing specific questions in later chapters. More seasoned personnel with a basic familiarity of the terms and concepts can get by without reading the entire chapter but might still find it useful should they encounter a specific issue that is addressed here.

APPROPRIATIONS LAW BASICS

1. What is meant by the term appropriations law?

The term federal appropriations law or federal fiscal law means that body of law that governs the availability and use of federal funds.

Federal funds are made available for obligation and expenditure by means of an appropriations act, or occasionally by other legislation, and the subsequent administrative actions that release appropriations to the spending agencies. The use or "availability" of appropriations once enacted and released — that is, the rules governing the purpose, amounts, manner, and timing of obligations and expenditures — is controlled by various authorities. These authorities include the terms of the appropriations act itself; any authorizing legislation; organic or enabling legislation, which prescribes a function or creates a program; general statutory provisions that allow or prohibit certain uses of appropriated funds; and general rules that have been developed over time through decisions of the comptroller general and the courts. These sources, together with provisions of the Constitution of the United States, form the basis of "appropriations law."

2. Wouldn't it be simpler to just look for specific statutory prohibitions against the use of funds and operate on the premise that if an action isn't prohibited, it is authorized?

That approach would be far simpler, but it wouldn't be correct. A federal agency is a creature of law and can function only to the extent authorized by law. The Supreme Court has expressed what is perhaps the quintessential axiom of appropriations law as follows:

The established rule is that the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that public funds may be expended unless prohibited by Congress.

That means that whenever a use of funds is proposed, the question should be: "What legal authority do I have to make this transaction?"

This is not to say that specific prohibitions do not exist. Congress specifically prohibits hundreds, if not thousands, of kinds of transactions in legislation it passes each year. Agencies must comply with such prohibitions. However, even absent a prohibition, agencies must have some