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April 13, 2007

Senate Strips Bill of Single Earmark

By Jeffrey Brainard

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The U.S. Senate has voted, for what appears to be the first time, to strip an individual academic earmark from a spending bill: $2-million to the University of Vermont for an institute honoring former Sen. James M. Jeffords.

The money was included in a $123.2-billion appropriations measure to finance the war in Iraq. Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a frequent critic of earmarks, took aim at the Vermont earmark as an example of what he called wasteful spending. He said Vermont's $282.6-million endowment grew by 16 percent last year, and the resulting income made the university more than able to finance the institute without federal help.

Mr. Coburn also complained that the earmark violated a moratorium on earmarks for 2007 instituted by Congress's Democratic leadership, and he said the bill would have provided the $2-million by cutting federal expenditures for managing student loans.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, defended the earmark. He said the institute, on educational research and policy, would honor Senator Jeffords, a Vermont Republican turned Independent who retired last year, "while there is still time" because Mr. Jeffords's health is declining.

The Senate passed Senator Coburn's amendment to strip the earmark by an unrecorded voice vote in March.

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