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Spending Bill Carries at Least 2,200 Earmarks Totaling More Than $1 Billion
By Alex Wayne
Congressional Quarterly
November 7, 2007
If Congress’ appetite for earmarks has been reduced by recent scandals and public pressure, it is not much in evidence in the largest domestic appropriations bill.
The conference report on the fiscal 2008 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill contains more than 2,200 earmarks — spending that lawmakers direct to individual projects — totaling more than $1 billion.
A senior Democratic aide defended the bill, saying earmarked spending was cut by 40 percent compared with fiscal 2005, the last year that the annual measure contained earmarks. But that does not include about $372 million in large earmarks, most with multiple sponsors, that appropriators consider “National Programs and Activities.”
The bill (HR 3043 — H Rept 110-424), which has a total of $150.7 billion in discretionary spending, funds the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, plus several independent agencies.
The House adopted the conference report, 269-142, late Tuesday night.
Republicans said they hardly had time to read the 853-page document before voting. And Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, complained that Democrats were attaching needed funds for veterans and military construction to a “pork-laden, overstuffed Labor, Health and Human Services bill.”
The Senate will take up the legislation Wednesday, and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas will lead a GOP attempt to split the two bills apart. If that attempt succeeds, the Labor-HHS-Education measure would be sent back to the House. Under a new budget point of order established this year, Democrats need 60 votes in the Senate to keep the bills together.
Reid said that if the GOP effort succeeds, Congress will send the Labor-HHS-Education bill by itself to President Bush.
Bush has threatened to veto both the Labor-HHS bill by itself and the conference package the House adopted, saying both would spend too much. In a statement Tuesday, Bush said, “Funding for the nation’s veterans should not be held hostage while Congress attempts to add billions in unrelated spending that has nothing to do with the needs of the men and women in uniform who have bravely protected our country.”
However, much of the “pork” Boehner complained about was requested by Republicans. Aside from the “National Programs and Activities,” the single biggest earmark in the Labor-HHS-Education section of the bill belongs to Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., who won $9.3 million for the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The second-largest was requested by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — $8.4 million for the University of Louisville Research Foundation.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group, counted 1,038 earmarks totaling about $563 million in the version of the Labor-HHS spending bill the Senate passed Oct. 23. The version the House passed July 19 contained 1,342 earmarks totaling $523 million, according to the group.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a critic of congressional earmarks, said in a statement that “rather than choosing between House or Senate earmarks, it looks like the conferees just added the House and Senate earmarks.”
In the fiscal 2005 version of the Labor-HHS-Education measure, Taxpayers for Common Sense counted 3,053 earmarks totaling $1.3 billion in fiscal 2005.
New Earmarks Included
Conferees added nine earmarks to the final legislation that were not part of either the House- or Senate-passed bills, including a $1 million earmark for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy at South Dakota State University. The center would be named for the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader; the earmark was requested by Sens. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Harry Reid of Nevada, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Tom Harkin of Iowa, all Democrats.
One particularly controversial earmark did not make the conference report, but critics say it may survive nonetheless. On Oct. 18, Tom Coburn, R-Okla., won an amendment to the Senate version of the Labor-HHS-Education measure that stripped a $1 million earmark for a museum commemorating the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
The Woodstock museum earmark was not restored by conferees, but they deleted language from Coburn’s amendment that would have prohibited any funding for the Bethel Performing Arts Center, which would host the museum. A Coburn spokesman said that effectively would restore the earmark.
“It’s astonishing that conferees removed the prohibition for the Woodstock museum,” said the spokesman, John Hart. “Instead of a minibus or omnibus, we may be looking at a groovy bus strategy.”
Lawmakers often refer to a multibill package as an omnibus or a minibus.
A spokeswoman for Byrd, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said conferees dropped Coburn’s language because it would have unfairly prevented the Bethel center from applying for grants or any other funding from the government.
“There is no intention to restore an earmark to Bethel,” said the spokeswoman, Jenny Thalheimer.
Coburn won an agreement to try to suspend the rules Wednesday and have his amendment restored to the bill.
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., complained Tuesday of additional provisions in the conference report that he said would make it easier for lawmakers to unofficially request earmarks and that would give earmarks the force of law.
The conference report drops an amendment DeMint won in the Senate version that would have prevented what he calls “phonemarking” — phone calls or letters lawmakers send to federal officials, requesting funding for special projects. The report also includes language incorporating earmarks from the conference report into the actual legislation, giving them legal weight. Bush has threatened to ignore earmarks in conference reports, which the Congressional Research Service has said do not carry the force of law.
“Democrats can’t let go of their pork and keep inventing new ways to stop new earmark disclosure rules and bypass the old ones,” DeMint said.
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