Do You Earmark What I Earmark?

In March, the House passed a bill providing $92 billion in emergency supplemental funding for Hurricane Katrina relief and the Iraq War. Today, the Senate passed a $109 billion version of it. As the bill allows for $14 billion more in supplemental spending than he deems necessary, President Bush is not pleased and plans to veto the legislation.

So, where's the beef? The answer: in the pork.

A number of earmarks, which are unauthorized spending provisions that are attached to spending projects, have been inserted in the supplemental. Certain earmarks have met more resistance, and inflamed more controversy, than others.

For example, since early April, Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has stood up against a $700 million project to repair and relocate the CSX rail line which runs along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Calling the project "a giveaway for economic developers" and arguing that it would not advance the "true emergency needs" to be addressed, Coburn urged the removal of the project.

Despite efforts to kill the CSX project, the Senate voted last Wednesday to retain it in the supplemental.

Yet Coburn remains undaunted. "I am delighted President Bush has pledged to veto this bill," Coburn said in a statement, and "I'm confident [he] will."

Coburn was also "encouraged" by comments from House colleagues, like those of House Majority Leader John Boehner, who object to such a bill that goes beyond the President's request.

"The House will not take up an emergency supplemental spending bill for Katrina and the War in Iraq that spends one dollar more than what the President asked for. Period," Boehner said today.

Another contentious provision in the supplemental involves a $200 million provision for Northrop Grumman, a global defense company, for the firm to recoup hurricane-related losses of uninsured items.

Senator Trent Lott, R-Miss., has vigorously advocated for this funding for Northrop Grumman, which also owns the Ingalls ship-building yard in Pascagoula, Miss. Lott press secretary Susan Irby emphasized that Northrop Grumman is the largest private employer in the state of Mississippi. Thus, supporting the company means supporting jobs in the state.
The tussle over the appropriations bill is not limited to the issues above, though. Here are a few which also raised eyebrows insofar as their qualifications as "emergency" funding:

$10 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service to equip federally permitted fishing vessels with electronic logbooks to record haul-by-haul catch data.

$6 million for sugar cane growers in Hawaii.

$ 1 million for the EPA to monitor waters in the state of Hawaii.

Another, which was eventually removed from the bill, was: $15 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service and other industry groups "to develop and implement a seafood promotion strategy for Gulf of Mexico fisheries."

Regardless of how unimportant some measures in the bill might seem, Irby charged that treating or characterizing them as such undercuts the people they might serve, especially those reeling from Katrina.

"It's an insult to the entire Gulf region to call any provisions frivolous," Irby said.

Jennifer Hoar