CREW v. OMB

The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is responsible for making “apportionment” decisions—that is, legally binding budget decisions that specify the federal funds that an agency may spend and any conditions on the agency’s expenditure of the funds. In the Consolidated Appropriations Acts of 2022 and 2023, Congress required OMB to post on a publicly accessible website a database containing documents with apportionments decisions, including footnotes and written explanations for those footnotes (the Public Apportionments Database). Since July 2022, and until recently, OMB operated and maintained the Public Apportionments Database, regularly posting apportionments information, as required by law.

On or about March 24, 2025, OMB took down the Public Apportionments Database. Several days later, OMB told Congress that it will no longer operate and maintain the Public Apportionments Database.

Representing Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen filed a lawsuit challenging OMB’s removal of the Public Apportionments Database from its public website. The complaint alleges that the action is contrary to the 2023 Appropriations Act, arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to the Paperwork Reduction Act. On April 18, 2025, CREW moved for a preliminary injunction and partial summary judgment, asking the Court to order that the Defendants’ removal of the information is unlawful and enjoin them from removing public access to the information.