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New Presidential Signing Statements purport to suspend reporting requirements

Free Government Information writers have reported on Presidential Signing Statements before. In the past two months, two new statements have been issued and are available through the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents:

Both of these measures contain language that the President intends to ignore certain passed statutes as unconstitutional. The Supplemental Bill signing statement contains provisions rejecting reporting requirements:

Sections 1209 and 2202 of the Act prohibit use of certain funds appropriated in the Act to initiate new start programs unless the congressional defense committees receive advance written notice. The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the President’s authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority. Although the advance notice contemplated by sections 1209 and 2202 can be provided in most situations as a matter of comity, situations may arise, especially in wartime, in which the President must act promptly under his constitutional grants of executive power and authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces while protecting certain extraordinarily sensitive national security information. The executive branch shall construe these sections in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.

Section 1209 is:

SEC. 1209. None of the funds provided in this chapter may be used to finance programs or activities denied by Congress in fiscal year 2005 and 2006 appropriations to the department of Defense or to initiate a procurement or research, development, test and evaluation new start program without prior written notification to the congressional defense committees.

Section 2202 is:

None of the funds provided in this chapter may be used to finance programs or activities denied by Congress in fiscal year 2005 and 2006 appropriations to the Department of
Defense or to initiate a procurement or research, development, test and evaluation new start program without prior written notification to the congressional defense committees.

The signing statement also says:

The provision under the heading, “Joint Explosive Device Defeat Fund,” Department of Defense-Military, that calls for the reporting to congressional committees of information that may include highly sensitive and classified national security information, will be
construed consistently with the President’s constitutional responsibility to control the dissemination of such information.

That provision states:

For the ‘‘Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund’’, $1,958,089,000, to remain available until September 30, 2008: Provided, That such funds shall be available to the Secretary of Defense, notwithstanding any other provision of law, for the purpose of allowing the Director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization to investigate, develop and provide equipment,supplies, services, training, facilities, personnel and funds to assist United States forces in the defeat of improvised explosive devices: Provided further, That within 60 days of the enactment of this Act, a plan for the intended management and use of the Fund is provided to the congressional defense committees: Provided further, That the Secretary of Defense shall submit a report not later than 30 days after the end of each fiscal quarter to the congressional defense committees providing assessments of the evolving threats, individual service requirements to counter the threats, the current strategy for predeployment training of members of the Armed Forces on improvised explosive devices, and details on the execution of this Fund:

The full text of the supplemental bill is available on Thomas.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


1 Comment

  1. If the Congress can’t control the budget or ask that they at least be told how the money they allocated has been used, they might as well leave. As a democracy we are surly in danger. These statements are removing any oversight from funding. When over $1 billion is set to be spent as needed till ’08 they need to know how it’s being used. It’s their job to know just in case they might need to allocate more money or if it’s being spent unwisely. Our deficit and controlling its growth depends on information. God help our Constitutional Democracy!

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