Congress Watch: Pork to nowhere wins again
The federal transportation bill wound its way past the final roadblocks back in July, when Congress passed the mammoth six-year, $286.4 billion legislation that paves highways, builds bridges, and funds mass transportation. But the controversy surrounding the bill is still picking up speed.
Nowhere is this the case more than Alaska, home to Rep. Don Young, the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure who delivered the 49th state more than $1 billion in pork-barrel goodies.
Despite the largess, state transportation officials are now saying they're woefully underbudgeted.
The problem? Federal earmarks, or what critics call pork. For Alaska, Young and his cohorts in the Senate earmarked about 60 percent of the state's federal transportation money for pet projects, such as the much-maligned "Bridge to Nowhere," a proposed link for the 8,000 people of coastal Ketchikan to its airport on nearby Gravina Island, now accessible by a seven-minute ferry ride. In part, the bridge will be paid for by $223 million of the state's transportation money. A second controversial bridge, this one across the Knik Arm, will take a $226 million bite from state transportation funds.
Officials now are saying those projects leave little for basic road repair and construction in a state ravaged by harsh weather. Last week, the Anchorage Daily News reported that the state's largest city will receive only $17 million for roads in 2006. The past several years, it has received $42 million. The trend will continue through 2009, when the current transportation bill expires.
An exasperated Mayor Mark Begich said the mammoth earmarked projects are "sucking right out of the internal projects of the city." Fairbanks, a city accustomed to $9.8 million a year for road projects, will now have to make do with $4.5 million. Leaders in both cities say travelers will have to put up with deteriorating roads.
The target of much of the outrage is Young, public enemy No. 1 for fiscal watchdog groups, who openly boasted that he "stuffed [the transportation bill] like a turkey." In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, angry Alaskans are petitioning to have the Ketchikan bridge money and funds for other special projects redirected to the devastated Gulf Coast. When asked about the opponents, Young told a reporter from the Fairbanks News-Miner, "They can kiss my ear!" and added that the idea "is the dumbest thing I ever heard."
Unfortunately for Young, plenty of people disagree, including the fiscal hawk Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who proposed an amendment on the Senate floor yesterday that would have redirected much of the money for the two disputed Alaska bridges to the damaged Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. The proposal prompted a fist-pounding tirade from Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who insisted the bridges were essential to Alaska's economic development. He swore he would resign "if the Senate decides to discriminate against our state," or worse, he would have to be "taken out of here on a stretcher."
Ultimately, it was the bill that needed life support, going down in a 15-to-82 vote. John Hart, spokesman for Coburn, is taking solace in the belief that they've won the battle of public opinion: "The average person thinks the process of earmarking is ludicrous, with these bridges in particular."
Already, Coburn is planning a bill to ban federal earmarks. If that ever makes it to the floor, chances are they'll need quite a few more stretchers.
advertisement
