(1) When Congress approves a MYC strategy, it departs from its conventional way of doing business. The Congress formally acknowledges the planned procurement of units over a stated period (of up to five years), and "strongly influences" future Congresses to appropriate the funds needed to acquire those quantities. This takes the form of Congress authorizing the Department to award a multi-year contract for up to five years of requirements. The Congress does this knowing that if a future Congress does not appropriate adequate funds, the multi-year contract will have to be canceled and cancellation charges will have to be paid to the contractor to reimburse for unrecovered costs, which the contractor was unable to amortize in the canceled years. In other words, there is a price to pay if the Government does not follow through on its multi-year commitment.