U.S. Sen. Susan Collins pressed President Trump’s top budget official Wednesday for details on the administration’s request to rescind $9.4 billion in funds already approved by Congress.

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee, which Collins chairs, to field questions about Trump’s request to rescind $8.3 billion in foreign assistance and $1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Collins, Maine’s Republican senior senator, criticized Vought for using examples of alleged misspending under President Biden to justify proposed cuts in spending contained in the continuing budget resolution signed by Trump in March. And she challenged Vought’s assertion that “no lifesaving treatments” would be impacted by the foreign aid cuts.

Collins said she was particularly concerned about cuts to programs that improve maternal and child health in foreign countries. To emphasize her point, Collins held up therapeutic foods for starving children, like enriched peanut butter bars, and prenatal vitamins for impoverished mothers in Africa.

“I know for a fact that both of these products, which are made entirely in America, are being held up,” she said. “This peanut butter supplement is in a warehouse, and there’s worry by the private foundations that are contributing to the undertaking of this program that they’re going to expire, because they can’t get the federal funding to distribute them.”

Collins said that kind of spending is “not only the right thing to do for humanitarian reasons but they’re incredible instruments of soft power.”

Vought replied that “we can work with Congress to make sure these kinds of things are protected in an ongoing basis.”

But he also said maintaining overall funding levels would put “massive pressure on the bureaucracy to get it out the door to the same (nongovernmental organizations) we’re now here to deal with.”

The hearing before the Appropriations Committee highlighted Trump’s broad attempts to seize more control over federal spending.

Congress has until July 18 to approve the proposed cuts, but Trump and Republicans also have been pressuring the Senate to advance his “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would extend his 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited the rich, and make significant cuts to Medicaid while adding an estimated $2.4 trillion to the national deficit.

Collins voted to confirm Vought as budget director in February, despite disagreeing with his views that the president can refuse to spend congressionally approved funding on programs he doesn’t agree with.

Critics, including Collins and Maine’s other senator, independent Angus King, have argued that such a view is unconstitutional, since Congress is given the power to appropriate funds. Also, a Nixon-era law, the Impoundment Control Act, prohibits a president from unilaterally withholding funding and requires such actions be approved by Congress.

Vought faced more aggressive questioning Wednesday from Appropriations Committee co-chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, who warned her colleagues that approving the administration’s rescission request would effectively relinquish Congress’ constitutional power over federal spending.

Vought said the administration is closely following how Congress handles this rescission request, adding they have identified an additional $126 billion in what it considers questionable spending in the next fiscal year. Under questioning from Murray, Vought conceded that all options were on the table, including trying to bypass Congress to cut spending.

Murray urged the committee to reject the proposed rescission package, saying failure to do so would undermine all future bipartisan budget negotiations, because the president will continue to strike spending he disagrees with.

“This is a powerful role,” Murray said of the committee. “But it is not powerful just because. That power comes from our ability to work together to write bills that actually become law and our willingness to assert our authority so those bills are enacted as intended.

“If we we choose to ignore that — if we choose not to defend that — this committee can and will lose its power and we are getting perilously close to that line.”