Anti-Deficiency Act
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.
