Republican Sen. Susan Collins has steered money to Maine for infrastructure and other projects.

WASHINGTON—Republican Susan Collins has spent much of her almost three-decade Senate career mastering the appropriations process, putting in late hours to secure the funding that sustains the military, keeps the government humming, and helps when disasters strike.

Her workhorse style has benefited Maine. The centrist has steered billions to her state for infrastructure and other projects from her perch on the Senate Appropriations Committee and rose to become its chair this year. But instead of settling into a job that traditionally shaped the contours of America’s budget, Collins is immersed in a full-blown public battle, one that pits her against her own party’s White House and the cost-slashing officials who occupy its budget office.

The Senate’s top appropriator has run squarely into Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought. She pushes the executive branch to spend money that Congress appropriated. The budget chief pushes back. Often, the money doesn’t get spent.

The White House’s budget office is “really pushing the limits of what the executive can do without the consent of the legislative branch,” Collins said in an interview.

The administration has taken tight control of government spending and has encroached deeply upon the legislative branch’s turf. Collins’s predicament offers a window into that fight, as she wins some battles but not the broader war. She and her colleagues are being overridden by the White House, a dynamic that would have been hard to imagine in prior administrations of either party.

Vought declined to comment. His office referred to previous remarks on the administration’s views on spending authority and its work to win approval this month for a $9 billion package to claw back spending through what is called rescissions, a process that cuts money previously approved by Congress.

OMB Director Russ Vought was co-author of the Project 2025 blueprint for downsizing the government.

“From the standpoint of the appropriations process, this is the kind of thing that’s necessary for us to change the paradigm of the way the town has worked,” Vought said this month during a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Many Republicans are on board with the White House efforts, but some have joined Collins in raising concern about the cuts and questioning whether the executive branch is overstepping.

During the fight over rescissions, Collins brought her research materials to the Senate floor, to a closed-door lunch and to a hearing. Her Republican colleagues paid attention. Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) warned that the dearth of specificity flagged by Collins was “approaching a disregard for the constitutional responsibilities of the legislative branch.” Without more details, lawmakers couldn’t be sure which programs would be cut.

“She’s got a point, and it’s a very strong point,” Wicker said. But like all but two Republicans—Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—he voted yes on the rescissions anyway, saying the $9 billion in reductions to foreign aid and public broadcasting was an important step to control deficits. The administration is promising more rescissions, and signaling it will claw back more funds with or without Congress’s help.

Vought has denied that he is crossing any lines. “Everything we do is legal,” he told reporters in February. Vought has testified to Congress that the Impoundment Control Act, which allows the White House to pause spending only in limited circumstances, violates the Constitution.

Collins this month spoke to reporters about the differences between 1992 rescissions and the recent ones.

The investigative arm of Congress has found that in some instances the White House’s action violated the law. The White House denies breaking any laws.

The standoff is approaching a pivot point. Funds that expire in September have been held up, often without the required notification to Congress. Funds for the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and foreign aid are among those at risk.

If the OMB keeps those funds on hold, they are vulnerable to being sent back to the U.S. Treasury, either through a congressional vote or through an untested approach Vought has dubbed a “pocket rescission,” in which the White House bypasses Congress by making a rescission request right before the end of the fiscal year. Many lawmakers, including Collins, view pocket rescissions as illegal. Vought has defended their legality while saying the OMB hasn’t decided whether to use that tool.

Billions unspent

Collins’s effort to get the budget office to release money—and the ways Vought has sought to curb spending—are a microcosm of the broader fight. One week after Trump was sworn in and before Vought was confirmed, the OMB froze potentially trillions of dollars in federal funds. Vought quickly canceled the move after public outcry. Collins said the administration had the right to review federal programs but called the move overreach.

Vought quickly reasserted himself. In March, the OMB refused to follow a requirement to spend all of the $12.4 billion in money designated as emergency funds. The law explicitly said that the White House had to spend all or none. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written—not as we would like it to be,” Collins wrote in a letter with her Democratic committee counterpart. The White House argued that the president had to agree that each expenditure counted as an emergency, and that some foreign aid didn’t meet the standard. The funds remain frozen.

That same month, Vought stopped publishing data on a website showing the pace at which money was being allotted to various agencies consistent with annual spending laws. He said that it would require the disclosure of sensitive information, forcing the Trump administration to reveal how it made decisions. Collins complained, as the move made it difficult to see which funds were being held up. A federal judge this past week found that the OMB violated the law.

Collins joined other Republicans in successfully pressing Vought to release about $7 billion that public schools use for such purposes as after-school programs, teacher training, adult literacy and English-language learning.

The fight is spilling over into the annual spending process in Congress, where Republicans, who narrowly control both chambers, need Democrats’ support to reach a deal to fund the operations of the government for next year. Some lawmakers are worried that additional rescissions requests that are being considered by the White House might prompt Democrats to accuse the GOP of tanking talks and threaten a shutdown. A spending deal requires 60 Senate votes, while rescissions only need 51.

“Republicans are making it much harder” to reach a deal before the fall deadline, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said.

Collins doesn’t want another rescissions package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said any resolution of the broader fight between the branches will be up to the courts. Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a spending hawk, said he believes the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the matter.

Protecting Maine

Through it all, Collins has sought to protect her state. She successfully fought to reverse the cancellation of a grant relied on by Maine’s lobster industry, a monthslong process that included calls to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Vice President JD Vance. She teamed up with other senators to lobby the administration successfully to release more than $400 million in low-income heating-assistance funds. She got the Education Department to release nearly $5 million for Maine colleges.

When the administration holds up specific funding or grants, she said, “That is very frustrating. But my response is to go right to work.” Most recently, she had a high-profile success when she led a charge to preserve $400 million in funding for the Pepfar global AIDS treatment program.

The fight is far from over. A week after Congress forced the Trump administration to release the Pepfar money sought by Collins, the spigot hasn’t fully opened, lawmakers said.

“It undermines her credibility,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), a Collins supporter. Tillis said Congress could tie up future rescissions packages if the White House didn’t live up to its Pepfar commitment. “If they betray a promise, then they shouldn’t expect any confidence going forward,” Tillis said.

Vought has said Trump isn’t opposed to Pepfar and has supported its lifesaving treatments, but he doesn’t want to support groups in the program that don’t share the values of the administration.

The congressional Government Accountability Office has the power to file a lawsuit to force the release of money. It has only ever done so once before, in the 1970s. The GAO has opened about 50 investigations into the Trump administration’s funding freezes and told lawmakers that the OMB hasn’t been responsive. This past week, it found that the Trump administration had illegally withheld money for Head Start, the early-childhood education program.

Mark Paoletta, OMB general counsel, wrote in a May letter that the GAO requests are “voluminous, burdensome, and inappropriately invasive.” He said the OMB would cooperate with the GAO “in a manner that ensures that the burdens of such engagements don’t unduly impede OMB’s ability to implement the president’s agenda and comply with OMB’s other legal duties.”