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PRESIDENT CLINTON USES LINE-ITEM VETO AUTHORITY,
SAVING $8.1 MILLION BY CANCELING 7 PROJECTS
FROM TWO 1998 APPROPRIATIONS ACTS
November 20, 1997
President Clinton used his line-item veto authority today to save
taxpayers $8.1 million by canceling 7 projects from two 1998
appropriations acts.
2 projects, for $6.2 million, from the Interior Appropriations
Act; and
5 projects, for $1.9 million, from the Agriculture Appropriations
Act.
The President's decisions were based on recommendations from the
Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Energy, and Health and Human
Services.
In the Interior Appropriations Act, the two projects are:
to plan construction of a dam on Forest Service land to create
a lake for recreational use, which is outside of the Forest
Service's traditional mission; and
to transfer millions of dollars of Federal mineral rights to a
State, setting a costly, and potentially environmentally harmful,
precedent.
In the Agriculture Appropriations Act, the five projects are:
to renovate a laboratory to conduct research on biological
control and insect rearing, which would prove costly to build
in future years and whose need has not yet been determined;
to plan an office and laboratory for research on poisonous
plants, which would prove costly to build in future years and
whose need has not yet been determined;
to support research on high energy and high protein feeds for
dairy cattle in one State, even though the Agriculture
Department conducts much research on the nutritional needs of
dairy cows across the country;
to help a university produce high-quality, pesticide-free
tomatoes, even though that university has been conducting such
tomato research for 30 years without Federal funding; and
to help a university develop a bacterial chromosome database,
even though other Federal programs provide funds to do the same
thing.