Millions in federal dollars go every year to tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes, but little if any goes to studying sinkholes.

He will accept it, he says, if it looks only at how new federal dollars are spent in areas such as home care and pharmacare.

They fuelled a critical national conversation about the billions of federal dollars available for the space programmes while there were few funds available for tackling inner city problems.

When approved for the grant, the district would receive millions of additional federal dollars for improving student academic achievement.

The grant would have meant hundreds of thousands in additional federal dollars that would have been focused on improving student academic achievement.