Hacker News Reader

Comment by adelevie | Hacker News Reader

This is all nice and good, but can you point to any government/federal agency sources that are citing the Anti-Deficiency Act as rationale for the web shutdowns? Seriously, I'd like to know, since OP just tosses the idea out there at the end of the article without much discussion.

If the Anti-Deficiency Act is not used as justification, then your interpretation of the law, as applied to the web shutdowns, is moot.

View on HN

The Anti-Deficiency Act, and opinions interpreting it from Attorneys General dating back to the Carter administration, is the basis for OMB Memo M-13-22[1] which provides guidelines to heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on how to plan for a lapse in appropriations. Pages 13 and 14 deal with websites and other IT concerns and specifically reference the Anti-Deficiency Act.

Here's question 5 from page 14:

Q5: What if the cost of shutting down a website exceeds the cost of maintaining services?

A5: The determination of which services continue during an appropriations lapse is not affected by whether the costs of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services.

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/...

How do they pay the cost of shut down, if they "can't pay" the cost of operation? Just curious. Math, and all that.

The 1981 AG memo, which unfortunately seems not to be online anywhere (if you have access to Westlaw or LexisNexis the cite is 43 Op. Att’y Gen. 293) interprets the law as implicitly allowing shutdown costs after the budget authority is exhausted.

> The 1981 AG memo, which unfortunately seems not to be online anywhere (if you have access to Westlaw or LexisNexis the cite is 43 Op. Att’y Gen. 293)

Well, I found it in the first page of Google results for the citation you provide:

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/10/f3/Shutdown.OLC_....

Thanks for finding that, not sure how I missed it. The language regarding orderly shutdown can be found in FN 12 on page 9.

> How do they pay the cost of shut down, if they "can't pay" the cost of operation? Just curious. Math, and all that.

Math is not an issue. The legal issue isn't the quantity of funds that can be spent in the absence of appropriations, but the purpose for which funds can be spent in the absence of appropriations.

From my understanding most if not all federal agencies had to weigh the Anti-Deficiency Act with there decision. There is also what qualifies as essential vs. non-essential and how contracts that support those services are structured with a dash of Solicitor and management interpretation of those things. And all that had to be done for all IT, not just web sites, in a given Department in about a week. So, my guess is everyone did a mad-dash-scramble do something they couldn't believe would happen.

They don't have to use it as justification. It's the law! If they use something else as justification, but not this, then you can say that. But if they just say "This website unavailable due to shutdown" they can be talking about any law, including this one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com