The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office released a report Monday concluding the Federal Emergency Management Agency violated the law “when it withheld or delayed the obligation of” funding Congress approved for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program and the Shelter and Services Program.

The finding is the sixth time this year the GAO has determined the Trump administration violated the Impoundment Control Act, which lays out a legal process for the president to request Congress cancel previously approved spending.

Instead of following that process, the GAO report says, the Trump administration significantly delayed issuing a notice of funding opportunity, the first step in awarding grants from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program. FEMA has not issued that notice for the Shelter and Services Program.

FEMA programs provide food, shelter

GAO wrote in the 22-page report the delay in the Emergency Food and Shelter Program notice of funding opportunity “constitutes an impermissible withholding and a violation of the ICA.” 

The Trump administration’s actions regarding the Shelter and Services Program “establish the intent to impermissibly defer or preclude the obligation of budget authority,” according to the report.

The Emergency Food and Shelter Program “supplements and expands ongoing work of local nonprofit and governmental social service organizations to provide shelter, food and supportive services to individuals and families who are experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, hunger and/or homelessness,” according to FEMA’s website.

The Shelter and Services Program is designed to provide temporary housing to relieve overcrowding in federal immigration facilities.

Congressional powers

GAO also sought to reinforce the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution in the report, explaining that Congress approves laws and that once the president signs those laws, it’s up to that branch of government to implement them.

“This process does not grant the President the authority to pass his own laws or to ignore or amend a law duly enacted by Congress. Instead, the President must ‘faithfully execute’ the law as Congress enacts it,” the GAO report states. “It follows from this that Executive Orders cannot function to repeal or undo legislation.”

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement the latest GAO report “is another stark reminder of a fact we have known for months: President Trump is breaking the law in order to prevent communities across the country from receiving resources they have been promised, including critical funding to address homelessness.

“The same guy who says he wants to get people off the streets is blocking funding for communities to tackle homelessness. Donald Trump and Russ Vought need to immediately allow these resources to flow, and Republican lawmakers need to join us insisting every last bit of this funding gets out the door in a fair, impartial way.”

Vought is the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.