$390 Billion Bill Carries Senators' Hometown Projects
The Associated Press
By Alan Fram, Associated Press Writer
January 17, 2003
Source
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans stood firm Friday and shot down Democratic attempts to boost the price tag of a mammoth $390 billion spending bill already loaded with hundreds of home-state projects for senators from both parties.
The bill - financing every federal agency but the Pentagon - includes $100,000 for a facial recognition system for police in Ogden, Utah, represented by GOP Sen. Robert Bennett; $300,000 to help control grasshoppers and Mormon crickets in Nevada, home state of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid; and $200,000 for a people mover in Anchorage, Alaska, home state of the bill's chief author, GOP Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens.
The precise magnitude of the projects - called earmarks, or pork by critics - was unclear. But in one section alone, there were more than 300 community development projects, mostly with price tags below $1 million. Another had 100 earmarks in grants for local police agencies, while another listed several hundred water and flood control projects.
The White House sent lawmakers a letter urging passage of the legislation, but threatening to veto a final House-Senate version if it lacks abortion restrictions that President Bush favors.
The bill omits a ban - now in current law - against giving U.S. funds to international family agencies that use their own money for abortion counseling overseas, a Republican aide said. The Senate has long had a more moderate stance on abortion than the House.
No one expects the Republican-led Congress to engage a GOP president in a veto fight over abortion. But the letter - written days before the 30th anniversary of the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision that ruled abortion to be legal - underlined Bush's stance on the issue and emphasized that the matter will have to be settled to his liking in the final package.
The bill also has $75,000 to help redevelop a former Schmidt's Brewery site in Philadelphia, represented by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. The historic Tuttle Building in Rutland, Vt. - home state of Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy - would get $300,000 to build affordable housing. And in Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's home state of California, the Los Angeles Theater Group in Culver City would receive $250,000 for building renovations.
One lawmaker - Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. - issued a press release claiming nearly $250 million worth of transportation projects alone for her state.
In an angry exchange on the Senate floor, Stevens said the projects totaled more than 2 percent of the bill. That would work out to more than $7.8 billion.
"Take the members' accounts out of this bill, there'd be no across-the-board cuts," he said.
His remarks were directed at Democrats who tried unsuccessfully to rescind a 2.9 percent cut Republicans had made in every program in the huge bill to make room for extra funds for farmers, education and modernizing election systems. That cut freed up $11 billion.
Many lawmakers say earmarks are part of the job of representing their states' needs.
"We can defend these add-ons," said Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Appropriations panel's top Democrat.
But critics say such projects are unfair, arguing that they tend to go to members of Congress' Appropriations committees and others with clout without regard to overall national need.
"It's feeding frenzy time here on the banks of the Potomac," said Tom Schatz, president of the conservative Citizens Against Government Waste.
The Senate debated the bill for a third day on Friday as GOP leaders abandoned hopes of finishing it until at least next week. The measure combines 11 spending bills that were supposed to be finished by Oct. 1, when the current federal budget year began, and that cover every federal agency but the Pentagon.
Congress and President Bush enacted two other measures financing the military last October.
Following Bush's lead, Republicans continued battling to hold the bill's price tag down.
With all 50 GOP senators holding firm, the Senate voted 52-46 to reject the Democratic effort to block the across-the-board cuts.
In another 52-46 roll call, they killed a bid by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to add $500 million to the measure for grants for local police agencies. Stevens, though, said he planned to add money for the program when House-Senate bargainers meet in coming weeks to craft a final compromise package.
In another vote Friday, the Senate by 62-33 decided to keep language in the bill allowing the Norwegian Cruise Lines to be the only foreign-owned company to provide cruise service to Hawaii. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried unsuccessfully to kill the language.
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