Coburn pushes Coconut Road probe

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) plans to pursue an investigation into the notorious $10 million Coconut Road earmark by offering an amendment next week to a massive bill making technical corrections to the 2005 transportation bill.

The amendment would create a special joint committee to review how the earmark was changed to develop the Coconut Road interchange, and what role Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and his staff may have played. The Senate is expected to consider the technical corrections bill on Tuesday.

{mosads}Language in the 2005 highway bill initially authorized $10 million only for “widening and improvements” for I-75, but was mysteriously changed to build up Coconut Road after Congress approved the bill but before it reached President Bush’s desk. One of Young’s campaign contributors, Daniel Aronoff, is a developer who owns 4,000 acres along Coconut Road.

"It’s an unprecedented abuse of power,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart. “The Coconut Road issue undermines the integrity of the entire legislative process.”

The latest version of the technical corrections measure would reverse the change to the original language. Late last year, Coburn placed a hold on that bill until the Senate or House agreed to a full and open investigation into the matter.

Young has refused to say whether he initiated the change. He has argued that local residents and Florida’s Gulf State University requested the money for Coconut Road to provide hurricane evacuation routes.

But the switch surprised Florida’s Lee County Metropolitan Planning organization, which voted three times to send the money back to Washington if the earmark could not be reversed to the original language.

Coburn’s amendment would create a bicameral, bipartisan special committee of eight lawmakers to investigate “when, how, why and by whom such improper revisions were made,” according to a copy of the bill.

Two members each would be chosen by the Senate majority leader, Senate minority leader, Speaker and House minority leader. They would be responsible for two committee reports: an interim report to be publicly released Aug. 1, 2008 and a final report to be released October 1, 2008. The committee also would have the option to refer its findings to the House and Senate ethics committees and “appropriate law enforcement agencies,” according to the amendment.

To provide real investigative tools, Coburn’s bill grants the panel subpoena power to require testimony and the preservation of relevant documents and to compel offices to produce them.

Coburn maintains the investigative committee will not supplant the House or Senate ethics committees because it does not have the power to sanction any member or staff or to make recommendations to either chamber. If the panel uncovers any evidence of impropriety, it only has the authority to inform Congress and the public and to forward that information to the House and Senate ethics panels or law enforcement agencies, who would be responsible for further action.