Murray, DeLauro Call Out Trump Admin’s Lack of Transparency on Spending, Demand Detailed Agency Spend Plans Be Submitted as Required By Law
Full-year continuing resolution (CR) requires each agency to submit a spend plan showing how they are executing FY25 appropriations—many agencies have failed to submit acceptable plans, or to submit one altogether
Washington, D.C. — Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair, and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought calling out the Trump administration’s unacceptable failure to submit detailed spend plans for each agency to the Appropriations Committees, as the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025 requires by law.
Agencies’ spend plans should provide more granular details about how they are spending funding appropriated for the fiscal year. The spend plans are critical to congressional oversight and the annual appropriations process, and have long been required by law. But as Murray and DeLauro write, the Trump administration has failed to submit adequate spend plans to Congress—and it has even failed to submit any spend plan for some agencies.
“Under your direction, the Office of Management and Budget continues to intentionally mislead and obfuscate about how this Administration is spending taxpayer dollars and has demonstrated an inability to effectively and efficiently manage public resources. Your lack of transparency shows disdain for the right of the public to understand how taxpayer dollars are being spent and for the rule of law,” write Murray and DeLauro. Noting how Director Vought has already taken down the OMB website making federal spending allocations public, the top Democrats write: “You have further degraded Congress’s capacity to carry out its legislative responsibilities by overseeing the development of inconsistent and inadequate spending plans for fiscal year 2025 submitted by departments and agencies.”
Noting that Section 1113 of the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025 requires spend plans for agencies to be submitted within 45 days of enactment of the law, Murray and DeLauro state: “[T]hese spending plans were due to the Appropriations Committees on Tuesday, April 29. Four weeks have now come and gone, and while the Committees began receiving some spending plans from departments and agencies consistent with the 45-day requirement, many agencies’ plans still have yet to be submitted or blatantly omit basic funding details at your agency’s direction.”
“The widespread failure of departments and agencies to abide by the requirements of section 1113 is unacceptable, and the lack of transparency begs serious questions about what exactly this administration is seeking to hide from the Committees – and the American people,” they continue. “These spending plans are essential to understand how the executive branch is spending taxpayer dollars appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 2025, and they directly inform the legislative responsibilities of the Committees to consider fiscal year 2026 appropriations legislation, a process that is already underway.”
Murray and DeLauro underscore that some agencies still have yet to submit their fiscal year 2025 spend plan, as required by law, and many others have submitted completely inadequate plans. “For example,” they write, “the spend plan submitted for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the label ‘Hill Version’ in the PDF name, includes only high-level funding amounts and does not provide funding levels for hundreds of specific programs and activities. Instead, it lists 530 asterisks in place of details about how this administration is choosing to fund—or not fund—hundreds of programs that the American people count on every day. We need to see the ‘real version’ of HHS’ spend plan, and we need to see actual funding amounts—not asterisks—for these vital programs.”
They conclude by demanding spend plans with sufficient information be submitted for each agency by the end of the month.
The full letter is available HERE and below:
May 27, 2025
The Honorable Russell T. Vought
Director
The Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20503
Director Vought:
Under your direction, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) continues to intentionally mislead and obfuscate about how this Administration is spending taxpayer dollars and has demonstrated an inability to effectively and efficiently manage public resources.
Your lack of transparency shows disdain for the right of the public to understand how taxpayer dollars are being spent and for the rule of law. It is well-documented that you are – by your own admission in your March 29 letter – intentionally violating legal requirements in order to hide OMB’s apportionment decisions from the public and from Congress. This not only deprives the public of information they are entitled to in law but also undermines Congress’s ability to carry out its legislative and oversight functions. You have further degraded Congress’s capacity to carry out its legislative responsibilities by overseeing the development of inconsistent and inadequate spending plans for fiscal year 2025 submitted by departments and agencies under section 1113(a) of the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025. That reporting requirement states:
Sec. 1113. (a) Not later than 45 days after the date of the enactment of this division, each department and agency in subsection (c) shall submit to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate a spending, expenditure, or operating plan for fiscal year 2025—
(1) at the program, project, or activity level (or, for foreign assistance programs funded in the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, at the country, regional, and central program level, and for any international organization); or
(2) as applicable, at any greater level of detail required for funds covered by such a plan in an appropriations Act referred to in section 1101, in the joint explanatory statement accompanying such Act, or in committee report language incorporated by reference in such joint explanatory statement.
In accordance with section 1113, these spending plans were due to the Appropriations Committees on Tuesday, April 29. Four weeks have now come and gone, and while the Committees began receiving some spending plans from departments and agencies consistent with the 45-day requirement, many agencies’ plans still have yet to be submitted or blatantly omit basic funding details at your agency’s direction. These spending plans were coordinated through, shaped, and approved by OMB.
For example, the spend plan submitted for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the label “Hill Version” in the pdf name, includes only high-level funding amounts and does not provide funding levels for hundreds of specific programs and activities. Instead, it lists 530 asterisks in place of details about how this administration is choosing to fund – or not fund – hundreds of programs that the American people count on every day. We need to see the “real version” of HHS’ spend plan, and we need to see actual funding amounts – not asterisks – for these vital programs.
Similarly, the Department of Education’s spend plan submitted on April 29th completely omitted dozens of specific programs and activities and claimed that almost $13 billion was “unallocated” despite the fact that much of that funding is directed in statute for specific purposes, just as it was in fiscal year 2024. The Department sent a revised spend plan on May 23rd that still includes $8 billion in “unallocated” funding and continues to lack detail on dozens of programs now with only four months left in the fiscal year.
The widespread failure of departments and agencies to abide by the requirements of section 1113 is unacceptable, and the lack of transparency begs serious questions about what exactly this administration is seeking to hide from the Committees – and the American people. These spending plans are essential to understand how the executive branch is spending taxpayer dollars appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 2025, and they directly inform the legislative responsibilities of the Committees to consider fiscal year 2026 appropriations legislation, a process that is already underway.
As the House and Senate Appropriations Committees intend to mark up the fiscal year 2026 bills next month, we demand that by the end of this month you comply with section 1113 and ensure that all spending plans contain sufficient information to demonstrate how each department and agency intends to prudently obligate all amounts provided by Congress for fiscal year 2025 within their period of availability and resubmit them to the Committees.
Sincerely,
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