# Rescissions Act of 2025 **Public Law 119-28**, signed **July 24, 2025** — the law that **canceled roughly $9 billion** in funding Congress had already appropriated, and the first time in decades a president successfully used the [[Impoundment Control Act]]'s legal rescission route to claw back enacted spending. It converted the administration's funding freezes and [[DOGE]] cancellations into permanent statute, and is the proof-of-concept for the whole [[Rescission and Impoundment]] agenda. ## What it cut The package, transmitted by the [[Office of Management and Budget]] under [[Russell Vought]], canceled previously appropriated budget authority in two buckets: - **~$7.9B in foreign aid** — global health, development assistance, humanitarian and refugee response, democracy promotion, international peacekeeping, and contributions to multilateral institutions, much of it [[United States Agency for International Development]] funding already gutted administratively by DOGE. - **~$1.1B from public broadcasting** — two years of advance appropriations (FY2026–FY2027) for the [[Corporation for Public Broadcasting]], which funds NPR and PBS stations. CPB announced it would wind down within weeks. The original request was **$9.4B**; the Senate trimmed it to ~$9.0B by removing a proposed cut to PEPFAR (the global AIDS program) — the one concession that secured passage. ## How it passed A rescission request under the ICA gets a privileged, filibuster-proof up-or-down vote if Congress acts within 45 days — so this needed only simple majorities: - **House:** 214–212 (June 12, 2025), then 216–213 on final concurrence (July 18). - **Senate:** 51–48 (July 17, 2025), with Republicans [[Susan Collins]] and [[Lisa Murkowski]] joining Democrats in opposition. ## The RWKB angle This is the [[Power of the Purse]] fight won on the administration's terms — but through the *legal* door rather than raw impoundment. Its significance is precedential: it proved that a compliant congressional majority will ratify after the fact what the executive has already done by freeze and fiat, turning the rescission tool (long dormant because Congress reflexively protected its own appropriations) into a live weapon. It pairs the [[DOGE]] cost-cutting brand with the [[Russell Vought]] impoundment doctrine and the [[Project 2025]] target list — foreign aid and public media were chosen as much for their symbolism as their dollars. The administration signaled it was the **first of several** packages; tracking the next one is a standing item in the [[Budget Hub]]. ## Sources - Congress.gov, *H.R.4 — Rescissions Act of 2025* (P.L. 119-28). - USAFacts, "What's in the Rescissions Act of 2025?"; GovExec; NPR (Jul 18 & Aug 1, 2025); CBS News. - GovTrack roll-call records: House #168 (Jun 12), Senate #411 (Jul 17). ## Related - [[Rescission and Impoundment]] · [[Impoundment Control Act]] · [[Office of Management and Budget]] · [[Russell Vought]] - [[DOGE]] · [[Project 2025]] · [[Corporation for Public Broadcasting]] · [[United States Agency for International Development]] - [[Federal Budget FY2025]] · [[Budget Hub]]