Federal Appeals Court Orders OMB to Restore Spending Tracker Website

The judges said that removal of the congressionally mandated database violated federal law.

Then-nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, testifies before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 15, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A federal appeals court has rejected an attempt by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to keep a congressionally mandated database offline.

The court ordered that the database, which tracks how the government spends taxpayer dollars, be restored within days.

In a unanimous Aug. 9 order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied OMB’s request for a stay pending appeal of a lower-court ruling that found the removal of the public apportionments database violated federal law.

“When it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith,” the judges wrote.

“Because the Executive has not made the requisite showing to support its motion for a stay pending appeal, the motion must be denied.”

With its decision, the appeals court dissolved its own earlier administrative stay that temporarily put the lower court order on hold while the judges considered the case.

The appeals court has now given OMB an Aug. 15 deadline to put the database back online and disclose materials withheld since March.

The database, created in 2022 under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, requires OMB to post apportionment documents—formal allocations of congressionally appropriated funds—within two business days of approval.

Congress made the public disclosure requirement a permanent fixture of the duties of the executive branch in 2023.

However, OMB contended in a March 29 letter to Senate Appropriations Committee leadership that the posting requirement “requires the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional, and deliberative information” that could chill internal discussions and undermine presidential discretion over appropriations.

The agency also cited possible risks to “national security and foreign policy” and argued that automatic posting within two days left no time to review or redact privileged information.

“Indeed, these disclosure provisions have already adversely impacted the candor contained in OMB’s communications with agencies and have undermined OMB’s effectiveness in supervising agency spending,” OMB Director Russell Vought wrote in the letter, which announced that the spending tracker would “no longer operate.”

In response to the deactivation of the database, two watchdog groups—Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Protect Democracy—sued OMB in April.

The plaintiffs argued that the law is clear and that OMB’s unilateral decision to take down the site hindered oversight of potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act, which bars presidents from withholding funds approved by Congress.

They also told the court that the database was “critical” to their missions, which include “promoting checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers,” including supporting Congress’s power of the purse, which the plaintiffs described as a “critical check against abuses of executive authority.”

Protect Democracy noted that, in support of this mission, it had built a custom website, OpenOMB.org, that relied on the apportionment database and that the deactivation impeded its efforts and was “blatantly lawless.”

A district court sided with the watchdog groups in July.

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in a 60-page ruling that “the law is clear” in granting Congress the authority to require public disclosure of how the executive branch metes out congressionally appropriated funds.

OMB appealed that decision, but the appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling in its Aug. 9 order.

“No Congress should be made to wait while the Executive intrudes on its plenary power over appropriations and disclosure thereof,” the judges wrote.

“The public interest is best served by maintaining the separation-of-powers balance struck by the Constitution and especially so if the challenged statutes keep the citizenry abreast regarding duly appropriated expenditures.”

In addition to the legal challenge from CREW and Protect Democracy, the Government Accountability Office also pressed for the restoration of the spending tracker in a letter to Vought, saying that the database facilitates oversight of federal spending and is “critical” to its investigations, which it said help ensure the “responsible use of taxpayer dollars.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House with a request for comment on the court’s decision, including whether it intends to seek further review from the full court or the U.S. Supreme Court.