In Haitian folklore a zombie is a dead body reanimated through Vodou magic. The modern concept of zombies as flesh-eating creatures from the cemetery evolved more recently, from the 1968 comedy/horror film, “Night of the Living Dead,” and sequels like “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead,” and “Return of the Living Dead.” Some call them cult classics now, staples of the horror genre. Such films all have one thing in common: no matter how many times the bad guys are killed, they keep coming back.
The same is true in politics, where the term “zombie” is often used to describe federal agencies and programs whose legal authority has expired but nevertheless continue to operate as if nothing changed.
Coloradans are justifiably proud that their state became the first, in 1976, to enact a “sunset law,” under which regulatory agencies and programs are automatically discontinued after a specified time, unless reauthorized by the legislature. At least 27 states have enacted various sunset laws since then, roughly half of which are still in force. Advocates often ask why the federal government doesn’t have similar protections against eternal bureaucracies. Actually, it sometimes does, but there is no enforcement mechanism.
Dozens of federal agencies and programs are enacted with expiration dates, and their re-authorizations are regular sources of friction on Capitol Hill. That’s why we see battles every few years over reauthorization of the farm bill, the highway bill, the defense authorization bill, and tax laws such as the 2017 Trump tax cut – the current congressional battle. Congress has enacted numerous laws that included sunset provisions, though sadly it is a fraction of the number of departments, agencies, and programs.
In the 1930s Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William O. Douglas proposed to FDR that every federal agency should be abolished within 10 years of its creation. “The great creative work of a federal agency must be done in the first decade of its existence if it is to be done at all,” he wrote. “After that it is likely to become a prisoner of bureaucracy and of the inertia demanded by the establishment of any respected agency.” FDR ignored the advice, though he appointed Douglas to the Supreme Court.
Nowadays, the Congressional Budget Office issues annual reports on “expired and expiring authorizations,” and the number and scope of such programs – now called “zombie programs” – is stunning. The 2024 report showed that Congress was still appropriating over a half trillion dollars – $516,013,000,000 – to 491 agencies/programs whose legal authority to exist had expired. Over a thousand more programs expired at the end of 2024.
Congress has not been able to pass the 12 required annual appropriation bills in 28 years, so it simply throws together “continuing resolutions,” funding everything at existing levels until some future date (which never comes), continuously kicking the can, not very far down the road. Thus, much of the government operates on autopilot without congressional oversight, the committees with jurisdiction over those reauthorizations being mostly dysfunctional. Senate committees with jurisdiction over agriculture, energy, and environmental agencies, for example, have let 321 programs expire. House committees with similar jurisdiction are responsible for 518 expired programs.
Those expired programs and authorities include the Interior Department’s endangered species listings and recovery plans. They include nearly $10 billion worth of energy programs, such as hydrogen supply and fuel cell technology projects, oxygen fuel systems, the Advanced Building Efficiency Testbed, a low-income community energy efficiency pilot, railroad efficiency programs, technology infrastructure, workforce training grants, conversion of cellulosic biomass, ethanol, and renewable fuels, energy efficient appliance programs, solar energy for public buildings, renewable energy security, abandoned wells on federal land, fuel cell transit buses, clean school buses, biodiesel engine testing, fuel economy standards, clean coal power use, the Arctic Engineering Research Center, the Next Generation Lighting Initiative, and dozens of others, all of which expired between 2006 and 2019 – but continue to operate anyway.
There are hundreds of similar examples in nearly every agency – programs lumbering along and spending billions without congressional reauthorization – because Congress cannot perform its most fundamental job. No wonder Ronald Reagan said the nearest thing to eternal life on Earth is a government bureau.
Legal authority notwithstanding, they just keep going. Every program has a constituency, and some should probably be renewed. If you think so, don’t worry; they apparently cannot be killed. Remember, even a movie as bad as “Night of the Living Dead” spawned, at last count, over 600 sequels and zombie copycat films – with no end in sight.
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