That's terrible! No political tomfoolery should ever disrupt a SAR operation! I hope that she'll be found alive, but it doesn't look good at this point.
The Anti-Deficiency Act definitely allows SAR activities as a "public safety" issue.
The cause of this is likely the response by agency management to that Act. That Act assigns criminal liability to anyone who spends government money without a congressional appropriation, with various public health & safety exceptions. And since no political appointee will ever risk jail time to ensure the public health & safety you get a lot of these bizarre results.
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