Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pledged to block all Obama administration nominees and "tie the Senate in knots" over $40,000 -- a relatively small amount of money he says is necessary to ensure the future success of the Port of Charleston.

"I just want 40,000 bucks," Graham told U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brass during an agency budget hearing today. "I'm really cheap."

The money would pay for the federal share of a study needed before the Port of Charleston could be deepened to 50 feet to accommodate next-generation supertankers expected to arrive on the Eastern Seaboard from Asia once an enlargement of the Panama Canal is completed in 2014.

Blame Graham's ultimatum on the earmark moratorium. Earmarks, individually requested spending provisions that get attached to appropriations bills, are typically how a member would secure money for a district-specific project.

Many ports along the East Coast are pushing for investment to deepen their harbors, hoping to get a piece of the potential action. Few, if any, have someone pushing as hard as Graham, who has been left to haggle behind the scenes with Senate colleagues and administration officials to secure the study money.

"My dilemma is that I have no vehicle to allow the study go forward," Graham said.

In the absence of earmarks, such behind-the-scenes lobbying between members and agencies has become far more commonplace, as members strive to have home-state projects written into agency budget proposals.

"I've learned a good bit about the Charleston Port myself over the last few days," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the water appropriations subcommittee. "It doesn't have a finer advocate that Senator Graham anywhere in the United States."

Graham threatened to "tie the Senate in knots" over the port money. A Graham spokesman said today that the senator would also block "other Senate business" -- but not the continuing resolution spending deal hammered out last week and still awaiting a vote.

"Everybody on this committee's been helping me," Graham told the appropriations subcommittee today. "I'm talking to the administration about a way forward."

Graham said Charleston is ready to provide the necessary matching funds and has argued that one out of five jobs in South Carolina is tied -- directly or indirectly -- to the port.

Such money might normally be attached as an earmark to a spending bill, but this year, Republicans have sworn off the spending provisions, which have sparked an outcry among voters concerned about Congress' profligate ways.