U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., are contesting President Donald Trump's authority to curtail nearly $3 billion in spending contained in the budget bill Congress approved just last week.
The move comes less than two months after Collins voted to confirm the president's budget director, Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025, a conservative governing treatise that calls for consolidating power in the executive branch and wresting spending decisions away from Congress.
And this week, Trump, at Vought's recommendation, said he would move to block nearly a dozen initiatives included in the budget bill that date back to 2023.
Collins is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has traditionally had significant influence over congressional spending decisions. On Thursday, Collins joined appropriations co-chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, in challenging the president's decision to exclude congressionally approved spending.
In a letter to Vought, Collins and Murray say the president cannot cherry pick which approved spending initiatives he wants to follow.
Collins has said that she voted to confirm Vought because he was qualified for the position and that she believes the courts will intervene if the Trump administration tramples on Congress' power of the purse.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, has not met publicly this year, according to its hearing calendar.
