The USDA failed to obtain congressional approval before relocating two research agencies to Kansas City this summer, said an inspector general’s report on Monday. “The budgetary provisions…requiring committee approval are unconstitutional,” responded USDA’s lawyers in rejecting the standard Capitol Hill requirement for agencies to notify Congress and receive permission to reprogram expenditures.
A USDA spokesperson declared “this case is closed” because Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was operating within the law in moving the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, with a combined workforce of 700, out of Washington. He announced Kansas City as the winner on June 13 and plans to complete the relocation by Sept. 30, despite opposition among scientific groups and some lawmakers. The ERS and NIFA face a huge staff turnover as part of the move.
Although the department previously complied with budget restrictions, USDA lawyers wrote in a memorandum to Inspector General Phyllis Fong, and the USDA spokesperson emphasized, such restrictions are void under a 1983 Supreme Court decision against so-called one-house vetoes. Under appropriations bills, the USDA is required to notify lawmakers 30 days before it reprograms money for office relocations and to receive permission from the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
“USDA must follow the law, period,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. “It ought not change interpretations when it is convenient for the administration or the secretary at any given moment.” Hoyer represents the Maryland suburbs of Washington and Holmes is the District’s delegate in Congress. They requested the inspector general’s report last Sept 26.
The inspector general’s report said Perdue had legal power to make management decisions on the location of offices but questioned whether USDA had the budgetary authority to spend money on the relocation. “Additionally, we recommend that the department obtain congressional approval prior to obligating and/or expending additional funds related to the relocation of ERS and NIFA offices.”
“The department’s actions comply fully with all applicable laws,” said the USDA Office of General Counsel in a memorandum. “In short, the department had full legal authority to relocate ERS and NIFA; the (audit) concedes that point; and the budgetary provisions cited by the (audit) requiring committee approval are unconstitutional.”
The 1983 INS v Chadha decision, cited by USDA, was triggered by a House vote under an immigration law to deport Jagdish Rai Chadha, whose student visa had expired. The House acted after an immigration judge suspended Chadha’s deportation. On a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court said the House wrongly strayed into the executive branch function of law enforcement. Once Congress delegates authority to the president, it must abide by the decision unless it takes it back, says a summary on the website CaseBriefs.
Congress routinely writes restraints on spending into its appropriations bills and often requires a report or a notification from agencies as a condition for access to funds. In working on funding bills for the fiscal year that opens on Oct. 1, the House voted to bar USDA from spending money to relocate ERS and NIFA.
“It’s a direct challenge to Congress” over its right to control federal spending, said Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which opposed the agency relocations. “If they don’t push back, the imperial presidency will take over more ground.”
To read the inspector general report, click here.