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Endangered Incumbents Claim Earmarks

CongressDailyAM

May 25, 2006

Earmarking federal funds for local projects might be voters' number one pet peeve in some polls. But with elections less than six months away, that certainly has not fazed endangered House members of both parties as the FY07 appropriations cycle revs up.

Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., has not been shy about securing earmarks -- taking credit for $300,000 to purchase a conservation easement for 1,840 acres of southeastern Pennsylvania forest land, which he called a "spectacular region."

The funds -- also included in President Bush's budget -- were part of a $26 billion Interior-EPA funding bill approved by the House last week.

Elected in 2002 and 2004 with 51 percent of the vote -- the same percentage by which Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts carried the district in 2004 -- Gerlach also said he secured $200,000 for restoration of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in Philadelphia and $450,000 for the Schuylkill River National Heritage Corridor in the Interior spending bill.

Among Democrats, Rep. Chet Edwards was the lone survivor of the Texas redistricting engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Edwards barely squeaked through in 2004 with 51 percent of the vote, and his district overwhelmingly favored President Bush over Kerry, 70-30 percent.

Under a $32 billion Homeland Security spending bill slated for the House floor today, Edwards said he secured $16 million for Waco-based L-3 Communications to refurbish border surveillance planes used by the agency. The $30 billion Energy and Water bill, which was headed toward approval by the House late Wednesday, contains $1.6 million for nuclear terrorism research at Texas A&M University.

Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-Ind., won in 2004 with just 49 percent of the vote against former Rep. Baron Hill, who is attempting to reclaim his seat in November.

Upon passage of the Interior bill, Sodrel announced he had obtained $1 million for wastewater infrastructure projects to repair or replace failing residential and commercial sewage systems.
When the "world's largest smokeless powder plant" opened in the 1940s, the population of Charlestown, Ind., grew more than tenfold and many homes were built with inadequate sewers, Sodrel explained in a press release.

Spending watchdogs, including Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., are infuriated by earmarks like $400,000 for the Research and Environmental Center at Connecticut's Mystic Aquarium. Flake was preparing an amendment Wednesday night to the Energy and Water spending bill to block it and several others.

But demonstrating the GOP divide over such spending, the aquarium earmark was secured by Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn. -- a perennial Democratic target. Simmons took 54 percent of the vote in 2004, and Kerry beat Bush, 54-44 percent, among his constituents. In the Interior bill, Simmons trumpeted four projects, including $2 million to buy an additional 289 acres for the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.

Flake said he initially did not know it was Simmons' earmark but that he might go forward nonetheless. "This earmark problem is bigger than party politics," he said.

His attacks are bipartisan. His first target Wednesday was to be $600,000 for the Center for End-of-Life Electronics in West Virginia -- backed by embattled Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.
In Georgia, GOP Rep. John Barrow faces former Rep. Max Burns in a revamped district. After passage of the Interior bill, Barrow announced $350,000 for the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, home to the Confederate States Powder Works, where 3 million pounds of gunpowder were produced during the Civil War. Barrow called the canal "one of Augusta's oldest treasures."

Though a long-shot target for Democrats, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., announced some of her earmarks well before the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee even took up the bill, an unusually swift action.

Musgrave -- like Flake a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee -- said April 28 she obtained $675,000 for a southeastern Colorado water conduit, as well as $175,000 to help build a plant in Eckley, Colo., to lower arsenic levels in drinking water. The subcommittee did not act until May 4.

By Peter Cohn