WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Congress authorized spending of $43.5 billion over the past year to operate spy satellites, remote surveillance stations and C.I.A. outposts overseas, according to a budget figure released Tuesday by Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence.

Government officials have refused for years to disclose the intelligence budget, citing risks to national security if the United States’ adversaries learned what it spent annually on spy services.

But lawmakers, acting on a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission, pushed a law through Congress this summer requiring that the director of national intelligence reveal the spending authorization figure within 30 days after the close of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

The number released Tuesday does not include the billions of dollars that military services spend annually on intelligence operations. The total spying budget for the last fiscal year, including this Pentagon spending, is said to have been in excess of $50 billion.