Congress can stop the continuation of the ABM project, or any project at all, a number of ways.
First, Congress can simply not fund the project. That means that there’s a big zero in the appropriations bill in the column where the project’s name appears.
A cousin to this is something commonly known around the office as a “little f*@ker”. That’s an amendment to an appropriations will which quitely alters funds and winds up reading something like this:
SEC. 386. On page 452, line 23, strike the number “$1,258,692,000” and replace with “$0”.
However, that’s not much of a safeguard. Remember that 90,000 square foot NRO building that appeared out of nowhere on Rte 28 outside of Washington? That’s a perfect example of an unfunded project (actually, in that case an unauthorized project) being completed through the use of left over funds scraped together from other projects.
Congress has a solution for that, too. Here is a recent example from HR 2217, this year’s Interior Appropriations bill, which (for reasons which should be dreadfully obvious) is rife with such clauses as this:
SEC. 109. No funds provided in this title may be expended by the Department of the Interior to conduct offshore oil and natural gas preleasing, leasing and related activities in the eastern Gulf of Mexico planning area for any lands located outside Sale 181, as identified in the final Outer Continental Shelf 5-Year Oil and Gas Leasing Program, 1997-2002. (my bolding) (you can view the bill at http://www.congress.gov )
A third way Congress could prevent a project is to simply create a new bill which prevents further research into the project. This, of course, must be signed into law by the President or his veto must be overriden, neither of which is likely at all right now, but which could be possible in, say, 2003 if the 108th Congress turns out to have a notably different membership.
A fourth way to get the message across is to insert a “Sense Of” message into an appropriations bill, or any bill. This essentially expresses the opinion of Congress without carrying the weight of law. It has been used in the past as a very effective warning to the Executive Branch: “don’t do this, or we’ll make you wish you hadn’t by restricting your authority to do so in the future.” Once again, it requires a clear majority in one of the wings of the Capitol to do any good, and right now that ain’t the case.
Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the Defense Appropriations bill hasn’t really gone very far in Congress this year. Neither has the appropriations bill which covers education, which I’m sure has our Education President all tied up in knots–“leave no child behind” and all, don’t you know. When the two bills come up for consideration at roughly the same time in the newly-Democratic Senate, some very serious horse trading is going to have to occur to get all those fine education initiatives passed. Something from the Defense Department might have to be dropped. Your suggestions are welcome.
No, really, your suggestions are not only welcome, they’re essential to the political process. As an American citizen, you have the right to contact your own and any other Members of Congress asking for whatever you like, which is probably why a quarter of a million dollars was spent on researching caffeinated chewing gum not too long ago. You may also submit “suggested language” for insertion into any bill. Or, you can team up with other like-minded people and join or form–God help you–a lobbying group.
Every member of Congress has a webpage, and every webpage has contact information. You can start with http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov .
Perhaps some other bottom-feeders–I mean lobbyists–will come in and give some tips on how to most effectively make your opinions known to your delegation. If not, I’ll save that for another post. Right now, it’s night time, and I smell chicken liver coming down the current from up there on the flats.