News

Pork Alert: Commerce/Justice/Science

WASHINGTON-(Business Wire)-July 8, 2008 - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the Fiscal 2009 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Act. The top five porkers are CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) with $9.95 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) with $9.7 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member C.A "Dutch" Ruppersberger (D-Md.); with $8 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) with $7.9 million and House appropriator Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) with $7.7 million.

The following are among the most egregious examples of pork-barreling in the bill:

— $1,350,000 for planetarium costs: $900,000 by House appropriator Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), and Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Danny Davis (D-Ill.) for planetarium equipment; $250,000 by House appropriator Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) for the Lakeview Museum Planetarium; and $200,000 by CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) for the County College of Morris Planetarium.

— $700,000 by House appropriator John Olver (D-Mass.) for a large millimeter telescope at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. According to its website : "The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) Project is the joint effort of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica, y Electronica in Mexico. The LMT is a 50m diameter millimeter-wave telescope designed for principal operation at wavelengths between 1mm and 4mm." The telescope is atop Sierra Negra, a volcanic peak in the state of Puebla, Mexico. The project has received $18.9 million in pork since 2000.

— $400,000 by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) for horseshoe crab research at Virginia Tech. According to a March 28, 2008 Richmond Times Dispatch article, "The horseshoe crab's blood is useful in intravenous medications and has cancer-fighting properties." This is a crabby case of corporate welfare; companies that need the research should pay for it.

— $200,000 by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) for research at the American Museum of Natural History to advance environmental literary through public education in New York.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.

Send this news item to a friend.

Print This Page