Young defends Coconut Road, accuses Mack

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on Wednesday defended changes his staffers made to the notorious Coconut Road earmark, the third time in a year he took to the House floor in an attempt to justify one of his suspect programs.

Young also accused his GOP colleague, Rep. Connie Mack (Fla.), of first supporting the earmark in 2005, and then distancing himself from it once watchdogs and the media began raising concerns.

{mosads}His 11-minute defense occurred during debate on the highway technical corrections bill when he asserted a point of privilege, a parliamentary move that allows a member to clarify a position on an issue when the lawmaker feels someone misstated his or her view publicly.

“I have been the subject of much innuendo concerning my motivation [in requesting this earmark],” Young said. “These accusations have little implications to what actually occurred.

“This project was asked for by the community and it was supported by the local congressman,” he said, implicating Mack without stating his name.

Ethics watchdogs have raised red flags over the Lee County, Fla., road project, the language of which was changed after that measure passed the House and the Senate but before it reached the president’s desk. Such a change may have violated House rules, which prohibit substantive alterations to bills during the enrollment process, the formal procedure in which a measure is recorded before it moves on to be signed by the president.

Young said Florida Gulf State University (FGSU) requested the $10 million earmark for a study about building an interchange at Coconut Road. He argued that the local city of Bonita Springs wanted it because it would lead to reduced traffic and expedite evacuations during hurricanes. The school, he asserted, wanted to build a transportation research center that would focus on transportation improvements.

What he did not say, however, is that a lobbyist, Rick Alcalde, represented both FGSU as well as the company owned by Daniel Aronoff, a real estate developer who owned 4,000 acres along Coconut Road and helped organize a fundraiser for Young during one of his visits to the area in 2005. Both entities requested the Coconut Road earmark.

Alcalde has not returned several phone calls from The Hill.

Young even raised the specter of Hurricane Katrina to defend the project and its change.

“This was always a good project,” he said. “The residents of this community deserve to have a safe and efficient evacuation route for themselves in case of a natural disaster. With Hurricanes Katrina and Rita we saw firsthand what happens when Americans are unable to get to safety.”

He said he will vote in favor of the technical corrections bill and support a local Florida transportation commission that voted three times to send the money back to Washington because they opposed the Coconut Road provision.

“For now, I support these residents and their wanting to put this money towards another project; I have always supported this community’s right to do what is best for them. That change is in this technical corrections bill and I support it.”

The technical corrections bill strips the $10 million from Coconut Road and redirects it to widening and improvements to Interstate 75 in Florida. It also includes language calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the Coconut Road earmark, the first time Congress will ask for an investigation of one of its own members.

Young accused the Senate of “meddling in House affairs” and going down a “slippery, slippery road.”

He also compared the “Coconut Road” change to another made during the same bill enrollment process — clarifying that the Jacksonville mentioned 10 times in the measure was in Florida, and not one of five other cities in the U.S. by that name.
 
Wednesday’s speech marked the third time in a year Young defended a pet project on the House floor. Last summer he angrily defended his infamous Alaska “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark. A second defense of another program was so hostile that he apologized a few days later to Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J).