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The Impoundment Crisis of 2025

One First: “The Trump administration’s Monday spending freeze is likely to provoke a crisis over the constitutionality of “impoundment”—one that the justices could well have to resolve *very* soon. The move was announced in a cryptic and thinly reasoned two-page memo that went out over the signature of Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of… Continue Reading

Impoundment Explainer

House Committee on the Budget – Impoundment Explainer, November 22, 2024 Fact Sheet Download Document Reports & Documents Budget Basics Focus on Function Letters Ranking Member Boyle’s Statement – “The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous,” said Ranking Member Boyle. “Unilaterally slashing funds that… Continue Reading

A Primer on the Impoundment Control Act

LawFare – “Refusals to undertake required spending are already a major theme of Trump’s second term, but the law limits such executive action. During his 2024 campaign, President Trump indicated that he planned to “restore executive branch impoundment authority to cut waste, stop inflation, and crush the Deep State.” Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to lead… Continue Reading

Trump’s death by a thousand cuts to D.C. federal workforce

Axios: “It’s only been a little over a week since President Trump took office, but already he’s unleashed a ream of actions targeting the federal workforce — a sort of government death via a thousand cuts. Why it matters: This unprecedented stream of executive orders and memorandums is unsettling Washington households as people scramble to… Continue Reading

Ebooks – Now Available from Bookshop.org

Buy Ebooks. Support Local Bookstores. “Finally, we can get ebooks from local bookstores! Browse and buy on Bookshop.org, and read right in your web browser, or download our iPhone or Android apps for the full reading experience. Every purchase financially supports local, independent bookstores! Have questions? Click here to learn more“ Continue Reading

Climate Deregulation Tracker

“The Climate Deregulation Tracker identified steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The tracker is linked to our database of climate change regulations and our two other climate regulation trackers: the Climate Reregulation Tracker covering the Biden administration and the Climate Backtracker covering the second Trump administration. Read more about… Continue Reading

Inflation Reduction Act Tracker

“The Sabin Center and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are relaunching the Inflation Reduction Act Tracker (IRA Tracker) with added functionality and analysis. The IRA Tracker is an interactive tool designed to help users understand the climate change-related provisions in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The website includes a database with summaries of the… Continue Reading

Climate Backtracker

“The Sabin Center’s new online tool – the Climate Backtracker – will identify steps taken by the Trump-Vance administration to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The Backtracker is the third iteration of Sabin Center climate regulation trackers. The first was the Climate Deregulation Tracker which tracked climate-related regulatory actions… Continue Reading

Silencing Science Tracker

“The Silencing Science Tracker is a joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. It tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information, since the November 2016 election. Read more about the tracker and related resources. We… Continue Reading

Meet the tracking companies that follow you around the internet

Datawrapper – “Considering the cookie consent banners that have come to grace our screens on a daily basis, it might not come as a surprise that companies are interested in extracting data from your online activities, and that browsing the internet is not exactly a private affair. Still, it is hard to grasp how this… Continue Reading

Sciurls

“Sciurls is a project by Browserling – a friendly and fun cross-browser testing company powered by alien technology.” “It looks like a Really Simple way to manage content Syndication” Looking for finance/business news? We also have FINURLS – finance news aggregator. Check it out! Continue Reading