authorization

Examples of authorization in the following topics:

• Authorization and Appropriation

  • Authorization acts establish, continue, or modify agencies or programs.
  • Authorization acts also authorize subsequent appropriations for specific agencies and programs, often setting spending ceilings for them.
  • Meanwhile, appropriations acts provide new budget authority for programs, activities, and agencies that have been authorized by authorization committees.
  • An unauthorized appropriation is a new budget authority for agencies or programs either without authorization or where the budget authority exceeds the authorized ceiling.
  • Other authorized programs receive no appropriated funds at all.

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• Investigation

  • These include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff.
  • Congress's oversight authority derives from its implied powers in the Constitution, public laws, and House and Senate rules.
  • The lack of debate was based on the view that oversight and its attendant authority were inherent powers of representative assemblies, which enacted public law.
  • Although the Constitution grants no formal, express authority to oversee or investigate the executive or program administration, oversight is implied in Congress's array of enumerated powers.
  • Although the Constitution grants no formal, express authority to oversee or investigate the executive or program administration, oversight is implied in Congress's array of enumerated powers.

• The Oversight Function

  • These include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff.
  • Congress's oversight authority derives from its "implied" powers in the Constitution, public laws, and House and Senate rules.
  • The government's charter does not explicitly grant Congress the authority to conduct inquiries or investigations of the executive, to have access to records or materials held by the executive, or to issue subpoenas for documents or testimony from the executive.
  • The lack of debate was because oversight and its attendant authority were seen as an inherent power of representative assemblies, which enacted public law.
  • Describe congressional oversight and the varied bases whence its authority is derived

• Oversight

  • Although the Constitution grants no formal, express authority to oversee or investigate the executive or program administration, oversight is implied in Congress's array of enumerated powers.
  • Reinforcing these powers is Congress's broad authority to make all laws that will be necessary to carry out execution the foregoing powers, all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government, or in any Department or Officer in the government.
  • The authority to oversee is derived from these constitutional powers.
  • House and Senate rules, for instance, provide for "special oversight" or "comprehensive policy oversight," respectively, for specified committees over matters that relate to their authorizing jurisdiction.
  • In addition, House rules require that the findings and recommendations from the Government Reform Committee be considered by authorizing panels, if presented to them in a timely fashion.

• The President

  • Sometimes, presidents amass several different ways of authorizing the use of force.
  • The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces and as such has broad authority over the armed forces.
  • However, only Congress has authority to declare war and decide the civilian and military budget.
  • President Obama did not seek congressional authorization before ordering the US military to join attacks on the Libyan air defenses and government forces in March 2011.
  • After the bombing campaign started, Obama sent Congress a letter contending that as Commander-in-Chief he had constitutional authority for the attacks.

• National Security Agency Surveillance

  • Critics said that such "domestic" intercepts required FISA authorization under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  • The Bush administration maintained that the authorized intercepts were not domestic but rather foreign intelligence integral to the conduct of war.
  • Additionally, they claimed that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
  • The constitutional debate surrounding executive authorization of warrantless surveillance is principally about separation of powers (checks and balances).
  • It should be noted that in such a separation of powers dispute, the burden of proof is placed upon the Congress to establish its supremacy in the matter: the Executive branch enjoys the presumption of authority until an Appellate Court rules against it.

• The Cost of Maintaining the Government

  • In general, an Authorizing Committee, through enactment of legislation, must authorize funds for Federal Government programs.
  • Then, through subsequent acts by Congress, the Appropriations Committee of the House then appropriates budget authority.
  • In principle, committees with jurisdiction to authorize programs make policy decisions, while the Appropriations Committees decide on funding levels, limited to a program's authorized funding level, though the amount may be any amount less than the limit.
  • Authorizations for many programs have long lapsed, yet still receive appropriated amounts.
  • Other programs that are authorized receive no funds at all.

• Emergency Powers

  • The president of the United States, as head of the executive branch, has the authority to declare a federal state of emergency.
  • The president of the United States, as head of the executive branch, has the authority to declare a federal state of emergency.
  • During the Watergate scandal, which erupted in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon authorized a variety of illegal acts, Congress investigated the extent of the president's powers and belatedly realized that the United States had been in a continuous state of emergency since 1950.
  • On September 30, 2006, Congress modified the Insurrection Act, as part of the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill (repealed as of 2008).
  • Under this act, the president may also deploy troops as a police force during a natural disaster, epidemic, serious public health emergency, terrorist attack, or other condition, when the president determines that the authorities of the state are incapable of maintaining public order.

• Interstate Relations

  • The Article contends that the Constitution grants Congress expansive authority to structure interstate relations and that in wielding this interstate authority Congress is not limited by judicial interpretations of Article 4.
  • However, the ability to enforce the provisions is dependent on the absence of congressionally authorized discrimination.