Under the Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. § 1341), recovery-plan language cannot commit a federal agency to obligate or pay funds in any fiscal year beyond the appropriations made by Congress.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by verbatim boilerplate language across multiple NOAA/NMFS recovery plans and corroborated by authoritative legal sources (GAO, Supreme Court case Hercules Inc. v. United States) on the Anti-Deficiency Act's requirements. [cascade flags: wikipedia_dropped_other_sources_exist | tier=silver indep_score=0.735 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- Recovery of Species Under the Endangered Species Act (seed:environment_and_wildlife)
- https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law/resources (corroboration)
- https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-818.ZO.html (corroboration)