Merkley Statement on GAO’s First Determination Showing the Trump Administration Violated the Impoundment Control Act

Merkley Has Called on GAO to Investigate the Trump Administration’s Violations of the Impoundment Control Act; GAO’s First Determination Covers Illegally Withheld Funds for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Authorized in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the below statement after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its first finding that the Trump Administration has violated the Impoundment Control Act.

“The President is not a king, and laws are not suggestions,” said Ranking Member Jeff Merkley. “Today’s determination by GAO reiterates what we knew all along: the Impoundment Control Act is the law of the land, and neither Donald Trump nor Russ Vought has the authority to unilaterally impound funds. This is just one of many situations in which the Trump Administration has withheld funding that Congress has appropriated, and we will continue to fight back and hold Trump and Vought accountable for their attempts to gut the federal government piece by piece.”

GAO’s determination focused on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program authorized under the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Trump Administration illegally paused nearly $3 billion for the program that was intended to expand electric vehicle charging stations across the country. That includes $52 million awarded to Oregon, $26.1 million of which has already been obligated.

“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation. Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound, or withhold, budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the ICA,” wrote GAO.

“Therefore, DOT is not authorized to withhold these funds from expenditure and DOT must continue to carry out the statutory requirements of the program,” GAO concluded.

Merkley has led the charge in calling on GAO to investigate the Trump Administration illegally impounding funds.

In March, Merkley and Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, called on GAO to investigate the White House’s unlawful removal of public records of apportionment—official documents detailing how federal funds approved by Congress are allocated and spent—from its website, severely limiting transparency and undermining congressional oversight authority. Shortly thereafter, GAO, heeding Merkley and Boyle’s call and raising concerns about the Administration’s actions to remove the apportionments website, requested that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reverse its actions.

In April, Merkley called on GAO to conduct a comprehensive audit of the foreign policy and national security implications of the Trump Administration’s actions to terminate foreign assistance programs, downsize the State Department, and attempt to dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). These actions by the Trump Administration, without the consent of Congress, are not only illegal, but unconstitutional.

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