Murtha nabs $150M pork

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense panel, has secured the most earmarked dollars in the 2008 military spending bill, followed closely by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.).

{mosads}Even though Young secured 52 earmarks, worth $117.2 million — and co-sponsored at least $27 million worth of others —  Murtha’s 48 earmarks amount to a total of $150.5 million, according to a database compiled by the watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS).

The House is expected to take up the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill Friday. It contains 1,337 earmarks, costing $3.07 billion, which is less than half the number and value of earmarks in last year’s bill.  

Keith Ashdown of TCS said, however, that the sum is derived from only the earmarks that the panel disclosed at the back of the bill’s report. He expects to find undisclosed projects as well.

“It appears that they are in keeping with the House commitment to reduce earmarks by 50 percent,” Ashdown said. “There are less [earmarks], but it is early and we have not looked at everything.”

The 2008 bill for “the first time gives us a snapshot [of] how the committee allocates taxpayers’ resources,” Ashdown added.

Even though the panel disclosed the project name, the requesting member, and the budget line in which the project was requested, the bill and its earmarks are not a model of transparency. The panel did not disclose either the amount requested or the companies that would benefit. TCS paired the disclosed requests in the committee report with the dollar amounts for the projects published in the bill.

This year is the first in which earmarks were disclosed under new House rules mandating that lawmakers identify their earmarks in letters to the committee certifying that they have no financial interest in the project. The report accompanying the bill contained a chart listing projects and sponsors, but not the amounts of the earmark.

Still, it is clear that the chairman and ranking member are doing well in this year’s defense-spending bill, Ashdown added.  

Murtha, the defense industry’s darling, has been known throughout his tenure on the defense panel to shell out a large number of earmarks. His biggest earmark in the bill is $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a move that sparked a fierce fight with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), who earlier this year voted in a private meeting to strip Murtha’s earmark.

The Bush administration requested $16 million to shut down the center, which is in Murtha’s district, because it replicated the work of a similar center.

Murtha’s second highest earmark is for $15 million for a military molecular medicine initiative.

Young has several requests valued at $5 million for projects such as ballistic missile range safety technology, the Common Aero Vehicle (another missile program) and rapid-response counter-measures to chemical and biological weapons.

The embattled former Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), also claims a big haul of earmark dollars, totaling $112 million*. In some cases, he joined  Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.) and other California lawmakers in requests for earmarks.

Lewis also requested $2 million for an integrated propulsion analysis tool, which would benefit Advatech Pacific, a company represented in Washington by Innovative Federal Strategies.

A partner of the firm is Letitia White, Lewis’s former Appropriations defense  staff member. She was formerly with the firm Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White. Federal investigators are reportedly looking into the connection between Lewis, White and Bill Lowery, the lawmaker’s longtime friend. Lewis also asked for $3 million to fund the Lewis Center for Education Research.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), one of the most senior defense appropriators, was able to secure $44 million in earmarks, including $1 million for medical technology to look into rare blood diseases. He made that request with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). The two also requested $5 million for a littoral sensor grid.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) got her share of pork projects — 11 projects valued at $37.3 million.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) haul is $26 million.

The lion’s share of the earmarks can be found in the research, development, test and evaluation budget account. Some of the biggest requests in that account include $21.8 million for “electronic combat and counterterrorism training” by FATS Inc. of Georgia, sponsored by Jack Kingston (R-Ga). Kingston secured $55.3 million in total earmarks, some of which he made with Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.).

Another high request in the research account comes from Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who got $19 million for an “affordable weapons system,” according to Laura Peterson of TCS.

According to TCS, candidates for the non-defense  earmark category include the Christian Sarkine Autism Treatment Center, which received $2.5 million from Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), the Center for Genetic Origins of Cancer at the University of Michigan, which got $3 million from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), and $1.5 million for an eponymous project at the National Bureau for Asian Research in Seattle, sponsored by Rep. Dicks.

* Corrected number