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Anti-Deficiency Act

October 14, 2013, 2:18 pm

You may be wondering under what authority the government is taking actions during the government shutdown.  We had a meeting with the Chief of the US Forest Service on Friday.  This is the specific text the Administration is using to justify all of its shutdown actions

(a)(1) An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not—

(A) make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount available in an appropriation or fund for the expenditure or obligation;

(B) involve either government in a contract or obligation for the payment of money before an appropriation is made unless authorized by law;

(C) make or authorize an expenditure or obligation of funds required to be sequestered under section 252 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985; or

(D) involve either government in a contract or obligation for the payment of money required to be sequestered under section 252 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

I will leave it as an extra credit exercise for the reader to explain how this text justifies either a) spending extra money to barricade war memorials on the Washington Mall or b) closing privately-funded parks that take not a single dime of government money.    All these tests have everything to do with limiting government expenditures, not limiting citizen access to public lands.

We had some delays (in part because the government is taking a holiday from the shutdown today, so everything is REALLY closed) but we file our lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order on the US Forest Service in the morning.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Category: 2013 Shutdown, Government

6 Comments

  1. Joe_Da:

    Does the statute prevent an employee of the government for expending money not otherwise required to close camps to "save money that wasnt going to be spend"

    October 14, 2013, 4:22 pm

  2. Don:

    Good luck! These yahoos need to be taken down!

    October 14, 2013, 4:45 pm

  3. Andrew Kloster:

    This is exactly the right question to ask. I'm confident the ADA gives a lot of discretion to the Pres as to how he will safeguard persons and property, but a lot of folks definitely think it is fishy.

    October 14, 2013, 6:17 pm

  4. Sean:

    Good luck. Would you mind adding a comment on whether you can continue this lawsuit once the gov't shutdown ends, or once the Forest Service permits you to re-open? Will you be able to set any sort of precedent?

    October 15, 2013, 12:37 am

  5. Hans_Bader:

    A community group in Virginia went to federal court and obtained a TRO on October 9 against the federal government to force it to reopen a park that the federal government did not even operate or manage but had closed anyway because it was on federal land. I discuss that ruling, which was reported on by the Washington Post on October 10, at the following link:

    http://www.examiner.com/article/judge-orders-langley-fork-park-reopened-after-feds-shut-that-county-park-down

    See also here: http://libertyunyielding.com/2013/10/15/judge-rules-against-closure-of-county-park-by-federal-government-which-cited-federal-shutdown-as-excuse/

    I agree with that ruling reopening county-operated Langley Fork Park -- although Judge Liam O'Grady's written ruling in the case doesn't contain much reasoning. (See McLean Youth Athletics v. U.S. Department of Interior National Park Service, Eastern District of Virginia, Civil Action No. 13-01257).

    And as a lawyer, I tend to agree with your conclusion that the federal government's closure of your campgrounds was arbitrary and capricious and thus violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the ADA "justification" seems very weak.

    October 15, 2013, 8:38 am