"Lawmakers’ bid to slow the closure of the department’s largest research facility rests on iffy legal ground but waves a yellow flag at the Trump administration."
"Congress is threatening to use its power of the purse to save a key Department of Agriculture research lab. But that may be little more than bluster in the eyes of the Trump administration.
Deep in the spending package that ended the 43-day government shutdown, Congress inserted a few lines forbidding USDA from using appropriated funds to close or consolidate research facilities — a provision aimed mainly at the department’s 6,000-acre flagship Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland — without approval from the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
That’s an old trick that sends a message but doesn’t have much legal bite if the administration chooses to ignore it, according to experts in constitutional law."
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