408 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

 "Senator FUlansV Congress will make the appropriations from year to year,
 just as it does in our other river and harbor projects.
 "Senator VAxamIaB I suspect it will"
 For another matter, the Senate committee hearing disclosed the existence
 and compelled the production of reports which both the Army and the Public
 Works Administration had been holding as confidential.
 It also put into the record the letters written by most of the large Gulf-Atlantic
 ship lines heartily endorsing the canal. Senator Vandenberg attempted to
 show that these shipping lines, or most of them, have changed their minds since
 they first endorsed the canal. That they may have changed their minds about
 endorsing it does not, however, imply that when it is built they will carry their
 hostility to the point of penalizing themselves several hundred dollars every time
 one of their ships enters or leaves the Gulf. Whatever else they may be, the
 owners of the big oil tankers and other freighters are businessmen; business-
 men, too, most of whom'have major interests to which their shipping interests
 are only Incidental, such, for example, as railroads and banks which are inter-
 ested in railroads. Such things as interlocking directorates are not unknown in
 the oil business nor in the railroad business.
 The committee hearing's greatest service to the canal, it seems to me, was
 to bring out and put into the record the geological report demonstrating the
 falsity of the water-supply bogey.

 nFLIDA CANAL HAs rBm ArUTromzED BY CONGBSaS
 To make perfectly clear what has happened to and about the Florida Canal
 in Congress, it should be pointed out that every law under which money is paid
 out by the Federal Government has to Jump two hurdles on Capitol Hill before
 the Treasury can sign a single check. The first of these hurdles is "authoriza-
 tion." On rivers and harbors matters, and everything else, the project must
 first be authorized by an act of Congress. But authorization alone does not
 provide the cash. It simply empowers Congress at some future time-any
 time-to vote the funds required to carry out the project That is the next
 hurdle any project has to jump, the name of which is "appropriation."
 In other words, an appropriation for a project cannot be placed in any appro-
 priation bill unless there has been separate and prior legislative action "author-
 izing" the project. As a matter of fact, the "authorization" hurdle is the more
 diffcult of the two. Congress may authorize a project and delay some years in
 making any appropriation for it; but once It is authorized, it is a pretty safe
 bet appropriations will be made. Once authorized, either the whole or any part
 of the cost of the project is legally qualified for introduction as an item in any
 appropriation bill, no matter how far in the future.
 Now, most people do not understand that the Florida Canal has passed this
 first great hurdle.
 When the matter first came up in the Congress at this session there was a
 good deal of debate on the question as to whether the action of the President
 under the Emergency Appropriation Act of 1985 constituted "authorization" by
 Congress in the legal sense. The matter was not debated on the floor of the
 House, but the chairman of the House committee in charge of the War Depart-
 ment appropriation bill, Mr. Parks, stated for the record at the committee
 hearings that unquestionably the Florida Canal had due congressional authori-
 zation (via the Emergency Appropriation Act of 1985) and was qualified for
 inclusion in any appropriation bilL
 The matter again came up on the foor of the Senate and opponents of the
 project sought to have it rejected from the War Department appropriation bill
 on the grounds that It had not been duly authorized by Congress. The Senate
 voted on this, and by a majority of 10 decided that the project was duly author-
 ised and was therefore qualified to be placed in any appropriation bill. When
 it came to voting on a specific appropriation of $12,000,000 in the specific bill
 then before the Senate they rejected the Item by one vote.
 In other words, the rejecting vote was on the appropriation item, not on the
authorization. Since that time the chairman of the Appropriations Committee
of the House, Mr. Buchanan, has stated that the project is duly authorized by
Congress. The Florida Canal therefore stands permanently as a project author-
ized by Cogres, and heceforth appropriations for continuing the work of
construction may be piedd from time to time in any appropriation bill, as
Congress may see fit.