# Train v. City of New York *Train v. City of New York*, 420 U.S. 35 (1975), is the Supreme Court decision rejecting [[Richard Nixon]]'s impoundment of water-pollution-control funds appropriated under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. The Court held unanimously that the statute obligated the EPA administrator to allot the full appropriated sums; the administration had no discretion to withhold them. Its significance is as much in what the Court declined to decide as in what it decided. The ruling rested entirely on statutory construction, leaving untouched the constitutional question of whether a president possesses any inherent impoundment power. That silence is the gap the modern impoundment revival argues into — see [[Rescission and Impoundment]] and the [[Impoundment Control Act]], enacted the year before the decision came down. > [!note] Stub — fill out > To expand: procedural history, the Burger Court's reasoning, the companion impoundment litigation of the early 1970s, and how the decision is read by unitary-executive advocates today. ## See Also - [[Power of the Purse]] · [[Impoundment Control Act]] · [[Rescission and Impoundment]] - [[Richard Nixon]] · [[Separation of Powers]]