"Sense of" clauses often determine the precise allocation of appropriated funds. Indeed _committee_reports_, which lack the dignity of a full vote of either Ho

"Sense of" clauses often determine the precise allocation of appropriated funds. Indeed _committee_reports_, which lack the dignity of a full vote of either House, or a Presidential signature, are treated by executive departments as determinative of public spending. They are the primary mechanism for designating "pork barrel" spending and thus are treated as the primary targets of lobbying efforts. I know this because I have worked on those bills. I do not know the legal or regulatory landscape around telecommunications in nearly such detail. But knowing the importance of such language in a REALLY significant corner, I would be very, very slow to regard any of it as without "impact [on] public facing policy." Not without a very thorough explanation of why exactly it was meaningless, and regarded as such generally throughout the industry. Again, I don't know the industry. I do know that the making and implementation of law is a very complicated business, where the black and white readings of law do not yield the simple answers one might expect from logical analysis. And I know that in very important corners of government language like this, and still further from law than this, is effectively determinative of federal policy. So blanket claims that "sense of" language are without any real force are "demonstrably incorrect".