 The government-wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds to pay the salary of any federal official who prohibits or prevents or threatens to prohibit or prevent a federal employee from contacting Congress first appeared in the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1998, , , (1997).In 1997, the Senate passed a prohibition that applied only to the Postal Service, while the House of Representatives passed a government-wide prohibition.The conference report adopted the House version, and a government-wide prohibition has been included in every Treasury-Postal appropriations act since fiscal year 1998.