DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL 301

place in the appropriation bill this item appropriating $20,000,000 for the con-
tinuation of work on the Florida canal, does the Senator hold that it would be
the duty of the Comptroller General to refuse to allow the money to be spent for
further construction of the canal?
 Mr. CLABK. Does the Senator mean, unless this amendment should be enacted
Into law, or additional authorization should be made?
 Mr. THOMAS of Oklahoma. In the event the point of order shall not be
sustained, then the Senate will vote upon the amendment
 Mr. CLrax. I make no such contention. Of course, if the Senate shall choose
to allow a rider appropriating $40,000,000,000 to be added to the bill, the
Comptroller General would have no right to declare it illegal, if the Congress
passed the bill and the President signed it. It is the matter of retaining the
proper authority in the Congress itself, control of the appropriations, to which
I press my point, not that the Comptroller General would have the slightest
right to declare an act of Congress invalid.
 Mr. ADAMS. Mr. President, will the Senator from Missouri yield to me?
 Mr. CL.AK. I yield.
 Mr. ADAMs. I wish to add a word, with the permission of the Senator from
 Missouri, in further answer to the point raised by the Senator from Kentucky.
 It seems to me there is a confusion of terms. There is absolutely no question
 that when Congress appropriated the $4,800,000,000 the President had the right
 to spend the $4,800,000,000. He could spend it at any place for work or work
 relief.
 Mr. CLARK. He could have spent it all on the Florida Canal if he had so desired.
 Mr. ADAMS. The authorization of a project is a legislative act The President
 of the United States has not the authority, and the authority cannot be delegated
 to him, to authorize a project, for that is a legislative act. In other words, when
 we are discussing the authorization for a project, a thing which only Congress
 can do, it is very different from appropriating money and putting it into the
 hands of the President and giving him the power to'spend it We did not give
 to the President the power to authorize projects so as to lay the foundation for
 demanding of the Appropriation Committees subsequent expenditures. It seems
 to me, as the Senator from Missouri has pointed out, that there is a very vital
 and essential matter of principle involved which does not concern this one par-
 ticular project, that is, as to whether or not Congress has attempted to surrender
 its rights to control the purse of the Nation.
 I do not think Congress meant to do that, and I think it perfectly clear that
 Congress could not do that. If the authorization for a project is a legislative
 matter, as it is under our practice, we cannot delegate it to the President; we
 cannot delegate it to the Bureau of the Budget So, if an amendment is offered
 for which there must be an authorization, the Director of the Budget cannot
 furnish the authorization, nor can the President furnish the authorization.
 Mr. KINe. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
 Mr. CLAnK. I yield.
 Mr. Knqm. I desire to supplement the very pertinent remarks of the Senator
 from Colorado [Mr. Adams] by challenging attention to action recently taken by
 the Senate.
 A number of States in the West appealed to the President to obtain a part of
 the $4,880,000,000 for irrigation and reclamation projects. The President made
 a number of allocations for such projects Some of the projects have been par-
 tially completed. Others have not been entered upon, although plans for them
 have been formulated. Recently some of us who were interested in those
 projects realized that the President had no power to make them permanent
 projects, because a legislative act was required to do that; and we therefore
 secured an amendment to an appropriation bill and had those projects legisla-
 tively authorized. If that bill shall be signed by the President, the Congress
 may go ahead and make appropriations. But in the absence of legislation
 declaring those projects to be Government projects-that is, unless there was
 legislation back of them-I doubt whether the President could make any further
 allocations for them.
 Mr. CrAx At that point let me ask the Senator from Utah a question. Does
 he think that when Congress appropriated the $4,880,000,000 for public works,
 we authorized the work to be done on the installment plan of $1 down and a
 dollar forever?
 Mr. Kio. No; certainly not
 Mr. OOPsLAIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
 Mr. CLAiK. I yield.