People, low income or otherwise, tend to ignore their utility until the bill gets too high or the power goes off, he said, and he wonders if people are going to spend time trying to manage their use and implement efficiency measures.

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But oddly enough, he already has the power to do so--he could simply tell a federal agency to ignore the earmark language in the conference report that accompanies an appropriations bill.

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The bill would have had no binding force, and the president had vowed to ignore it.

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