Lee's right on this one.
It's Congress' job to allocate funds, and the Executive's job to spend them as allocated. I can almost see the NEA being (or having been) reasonable to allow POTUS to act quickly when Congress can't, almost, like a sudden emergency when Congress is out of session. But 30 days later? No way. That's just a perversion of the separation of power provided in the Constitution. Might as well just go back to monarchy.