Earmarks cloud emergency spending bill
United Press International
April 30, 2006
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The Senate faces a rare veto threat unless it removes some $11.5 billion in earmarks from an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war and hurricane recovery.
The special projects were added to the president's original $92.2 billion request, pitting fiscal conservatives led by Oklahoma's Sen. Tom Coburn against more politically minded Republicans who want to use pork-barrel spending to curry favor with voters in November.
Coburn has already succeeded in trimming $15 million in funding for seafood promotion, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
This week he plans to seek a vote to delete $176 million to rebuild an armed forces retirement home in Gulfport, Miss., which he views as an excessive amount for basic repairs.
The Oklahoma senator is also targeting a provision that would provide as much as $500 million to Northrop Grumman Corp., which operates a shipbuilding facility in Mississippi, to compensate for losses related to Hurricane Katrina.
The White House has urged the Senate to drop that earmark, cautioning its language could provide an incentive for insurance companies to deny payments to Navy contractors.
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