Making laws
authorizing committee
The committee with subject-matter jurisdiction that creates and reauthorizes programs, as opposed to the appropriators who fund them.
In full
The split is the reason a program can exist with no money, or receive money with an expired authorization. Authorizers set what a program may do and for how long; appropriators decide what it gets this year. Long-lapsed authorizations funded anyway are common, and are one of the quieter measures of how much routine legislating has stopped happening.
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.