United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

Senate Appropriations Committee

Standing committee
Active United States Senate 118th Congress
History
Formed	March 6, 1867
Leadership
Chair	Patty Murray (D) Since January 3, 2023
Vice chair	Susan Collins (R) Since January 3, 2023
Structure
Seats	28 members
Political parties	Majority (15)   Democratic (15) Minority (14)   Republican (14)
Jurisdiction
Policy areas	Appropriations bills, Discretionary spending, Rescission bills
Oversight authority	Federal government of the United States
House counterpart	House Committee on Appropriations
Meeting place
304 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, D.C., S-128 United States Capitol Washington, D.C.
Website
www.appropriations.senate.gov

The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is the largest committee in the U.S. Senate, with 30 members in the 117th Congress. Its role is defined by the U.S. Constitution, which requires "appropriations made by law" prior to the expenditure of any money from the Treasury, and the committee is therefore one of the most powerful committees in the Senate.^[1] The committee was first organized on March 6, 1867, when power over appropriations was taken out of the hands of the Finance Committee.^[2]

The chairman of the Appropriations Committee has enormous power to bring home special projects (sometimes referred to as "pork barrel spending") for their state as well as having the final say on other senators' appropriation requests.^[3] For example, in fiscal year 2005 per capita federal spending in Alaska, the home state of then-Chairman Ted Stevens, was $12,000, double the national average. Alaska has 11,772 special earmarked projects for a combined cost of $15,780,623,000. This represents about four percent of the overall spending in the $388 billion Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 passed by Congress.^[4]

From 2001 to 2021, every Senate Majority Leader has been a previous or concurrently-serving member of the Appropriations Committee: Tom Daschle (committee member, 1991–1999; majority leader, 2001–2003), Bill Frist (committee member, 1995–2002; majority leader, 2003–2007), Harry Reid (committee member, 1989–2006; majority leader, 2007–2015), Mitch McConnell (current committee member; majority leader, 2015–2021).