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guidance for the federal courts and served only to invite and prolong needless litigation.

The Solicitor General proposes to remedy the present confusion in this area of the law with a sweeping rule. As it has in the past, the Government asks us to adopt "a flat rule that estoppel may not in any circumstances run against the Government." Community Health Services, supra, at 60. The Government bases its broad rule first upon the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Noting that the "United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit save as it consents to be sued,'" United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 538 (1980), petitioner asserts that the courts are without jurisdiction to entertain a suit to compel the Government to act contrary to a statute, no matter what the context or circumstances. See Brief for Petitioner 12-13. Petitioner advances as a second basis for this rule the doctrine of separation of powers. Petitioner contends that to recognize estoppel based on the misrepresentations of Executive Branch officials would give those misrepresentations the force of law, and thereby invade the legislative province reserved to Congress. This rationale, too, supports the petitioner's contention that estoppel may never justify an order requiring executive action contrary to a relevant statute, no matter what statute or what facts are involved.

We have recognized before that the "arguments the Government advances for the rule are substantial." Community Health Services, supra, at 60. And we agree that this case should be decided under a clearer form of analysis than “we will know an estoppel when we see one." Hansen, supra, at 792 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). But it remains true that we need not embrace a rule that no estoppel will lie against the Government in any case in order to decide this case. We leave for another day whether an estoppel claim could ever succeed against the Government. A narrower ground of decision is sufficient to address the type of suit presented here,

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a claim for payment of money from the Public Treasury contrary to a statutory appropriation.

III

The Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, §9, cl. 7, provides that: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." For the particular type of claim at issue here, a claim for money from the Federal Treasury, the Clause provides an explicit rule of decision. Money may be paid out only through an appropriation made by law; in other words, the payment of money from the Treasury must be authorized by a statute. All parties here agree that the award respondent seeks would be in direct contravention of the federal statute upon which his ultimate claim to the funds must rest, 5 U. S. C. § 8337. The point is made clearer when the appropriation supporting the benefits sought by respondent is examined. In the same subchapter of the United States Code as the eligibility requirements, Congress established the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. §8348(a)(1)(A). That section states in pertinent part: "The Fund . . . is appropriated for the payment of . . . benefits as provided by this subchapter . . . .' (Emphasis added.) The benefits respondent claims were not "provided by" the relevant provision of the subchapter; rather, they were specifically denied. It follows that Congress has appropriated no money for the payment of the benefits respondent seeks, and the Constitution prohibits that any money "be drawn from the Treasury" to pay them.

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Our cases underscore the straightforward and explicit command of the Appropriations Clause. "It means simply that no money can be paid out of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress." Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308, 321 (1937) (citing Reeside v. Walker, 11 How. 272, 291 (1851)). In Reeside, supra, we addressed a claim brought by the holder of a judgment of indebtedness against the United States that the Secretary of

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the Treasury of the United States should be ordered to enter the claim upon the books of the Treasury so that the debt might be paid. In rejecting petitioner's claim for relief, we stated as an alternative ground for decision that if

"the petition in this case was allowed so far as to order the verdict against the United States to be entered on the books of the Treasury Department, the plaintiff would be as far from having a claim on the Secretary or Treasurer to pay it as now. The difficulty in the way is the want of any appropriation by Congress to pay this claim. It is a well-known constitutional provision, that no money can be taken or drawn from the Treasury except under an appropriation by Congress. See Constitution, art. 1, §9 (1 Stat. at Large, 15).

"However much money may be in the Treasury at any one time, not a dollar of it can be used in the payment of any thing not thus previously sanctioned. Any other

course would give to the fiscal officers a most dangerous discretion." Id., at 291.

The command of the Clause is not limited to the relief available in a judicial proceeding seeking payment of public funds. Any exercise of a power granted by the Constitution to one of the other branches of Government is limited by a valid reservation of congressional control over funds in the Treasury. We have held, for example, that while the President's pardon power may remove all disabilities from one convicted of treason, that power does not extend to an order to repay from the Treasury the proceeds derived from the sale of the convict's forfeited property:

"So, also, if the proceeds have been paid into the treasury, the right to them has so far become vested in the United States that they can only be secured to the former owner of the property through an act of Congress. Moneys once in the treasury can only be withdrawn by an appropriation by law. However large, therefore,

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may be the power of pardon possessed by the President, and however extended may be its application, there is this limit to it, as there is to all his powers, -it cannot touch moneys in the treasury of the United States, except expressly authorized by act of Congress." Knote v. United States, 95 U. S. 149, 154 (1877).

Just as the pardon power cannot override the command of the Appropriations Clause, so too judicial use of the equitable doctrine of estoppel cannot grant respondent a money remedy that Congress has not authorized. See INS v. Pangilinan, 486 U. S. 875, 883 (1988) ("Courts of equity can no more disregard statutory and constitutional requirements and provisions than can courts of law'").

We have not had occasion in past cases presenting claims of estoppel against the Government to discuss the Appropriations Clause, for reasons that are apparent. Given the strict rule against estoppel applied as early as 1813 in Lee v. Munroe & Thornton, 7 Cranch 366, claims of estoppel could be dismissed on that ground without more. In our cases following Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U. S. 308 (1961), reserving the possibility that estoppel might lie on some facts, we have held only that the particular facts presented were insufficient. As discussed supra, at 423-424, we decline today to accept the Solicitor General's argument for an across-the-board noestoppel rule. But this makes it all the more important to state the law and to settle the matter of estoppel as a basis for money claims against the Government.

Our decision is consistent with both the holdings and the rationale expressed in our estoppel precedents. Even our recent cases evince a most strict approach to estoppel claims involving public funds. See Community Health Services, 467 U. S., at 63 ("Protection of the public fisc requires that those who seek public funds act with scrupulous regard for the requirements of law"). The course of our jurisprudence shows why: Opinions have differed on whether this Court has ever accepted an estoppel claim in other contexts, see id.,

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at 60 (suggesting that United States v. Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corp., 411 U. S. 655 (1973) (PICCO), was decided on estoppel grounds); 467 U. S., at 68 (opinion of REHNQUIST, J.) (PICCO not an estoppel case), but not a single case has upheld an estoppel claim against the Government for the payment of money. And our cases denying estoppel are animated by the same concerns that prompted the Framers to include the Appropriations Clause in the Constitution. As Justice Story described the Clause:

"The object is apparent upon the slightest examination.
It is to secure regularity, punctuality, and fidelity, in the
disbursements of the public money.
As all the taxes
raised from the people, as well as revenues arising
from other sources, are to be applied to the discharge of
the expenses, and debts, and other engagements of the
government, it is highly proper, that congress should
possess the power to decide how and when any money
should be applied for these purposes. If it were other-
wise, the executive would possess an unbounded power
over the public purse of the nation; and might apply all
its moneyed resources at his pleasure. The power to
control and direct the appropriations, constitutes a most
useful and salutary check upon profusion and extrava-
gance, as well as upon corrupt influence and public pecu-
lation. . . ." 2 Commentaries on the Constitution of the
United States § 1348 (3d ed. 1858).

The obvious practical consideration cited by Justice Story for adherence to the requirement of the Clause is the necessity, existing now as much as at the time the Constitution was ratified, of preventing fraud and corruption. We have long ago accepted this ground as a reason that claims for estoppel cannot be entertained where public money is at stake, refusing to "introduce a rule against an abuse, of which, by improper collusions, it would be very difficult for the public to protect itself." Lee, supra, at 370. But the Clause has a more fundamental and comprehensive purpose, of direct rele

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