Kentucky's congressional delegation has inserted $139 million into the federal budget specifically for projects and research at the University of Louisville since 2000.
In the same period, the delegation has directed more than $120 million in grants to the University of Kentucky.
But a congressional critic of such grants, called earmarks, has asked UK, U of L and more than 100 other schools to prove they are using taxpayer money effectively.
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., contends the process doesn't allow proper congressional oversight. He said it needs to rely more on merit and less on the power of a local senator or representative.
But some of the country's top universities and Coburn's colleagues, including U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., say the process works well the way it is. McConnell said he's secured millions for UK and U of L through directed federal grants to help them "achieve some level of greatness" and improve the quality of life in Kentucky.
"It's no accident that Silicon Valley is near Stanford and that the Research Triangle is near Duke and North Carolina," McConnell said in an interview.
Coburn and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have vowed to challenge every earmark in federal spending bills this year. Coburn claims on his Web site to have saved at least $1.3 billion in federal spending, and he has held a series of congressional hearings on the grants.
Now he's turning his eye toward higher education.
"Every dollar we spend to build a building named after a senator is a dollar we can't spend on cancer," said John Hart, spokesman for Coburn, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee on federal financial management, government information and international security.
U of L has named an auditorium in its Ekstrom Library expansion -- funded by $14 million secured by McConnell -- for McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, the U.S. labor secretary.
UK named a law school technology center after McConnell after he obtained $750,000 in federal funding to renovate four classrooms, and Western Kentucky University named a science lab after McConnell after he secured $2.4 million for it.
The process
Typically, federal research money is distributed through the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Defense Department and other agencies on a competitive basis.
Awards go to the schools with the best research programs.
But increasingly, lawmakers have been inserting earmarks for specific projects at specific schools into the budget.
Such grants for U of L jumped from $4.9 million in 2000 to $37.7 million in 2005. At UK, they went from $5.3 million to $27.2 million in that period.
McConnell said the process helps UK and U of L compete for federal grants
"They are now much more competitive in the peer review process, which … is so frequently stacked against the colleges that are not, or even considered, great," McConnell said of UK and U of L.
McConnell declined to comment on the Coburn request.
Schools defend grants
UK and U of L have responded to a letter from Coburn asking for a detailed list of projects supported by earmarks and what has been accomplished by them. University officials said they are concerned his inquiry could lead to fewer earmarks.
U of L President James R. Ramsey said it is a "great advantage" to have the powerful McConnell secure earmarks.
"Mitch is our graduate. We're proud of him as a graduate. He's very committed to higher education, and especially committed to the University of Louisville," Ramsey said.
"The earmarks have helped make us a different university," Ramsey said. "The earmarks time and time again have been critical to development, particularly for our research infrastructure."
At UK, Wendy Baldwin, executive vice president for research, also defended the process.
"Most senators and representatives want to do something for their home area. and the question is: Can they find something constructive to do? And the way things work here, the projects are really constructive," Baldwin said.
But Kei Koizumi, director of the research and development budget policy group at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the increase of earmarks could eat into money for competitive grants.
Federal earmarks for research and development -- at universities, federal labs and private companies -- reached a record $2.4 billion this fiscal year, according to the association. That compares with nearly $1.5 billion in 2002, when the group began tracking the grants.
The group doesn't break out the amount of these grants for only federal research and development at universities.
"We think that of the many ways of allocating federal research funds the ideal way for funding scientific excellence is competitive funding," Koizumi said.
Examples
In his Aug. 28 response to Coburn, UK President Lee Todd didn't provide a list of projects paid for with earmarks. But he said UK received more than 100 federal grants between 2000 and 2006 worth more than $120 million.
Todd said that such funding was crucial to the Kentucky Oral Health Initiative, which provides dental care to impoverished parts of the state; the Abandoned Mine Lands Reforestation project, which has reforested more than 3,000 acres in the state; and the Advanced Genetic Technologies program to study plant and animal diseases.
Baldwin said that earmarks attract more federal money.
The $3.6 million in earmarks for agriculture have generated $20 million in federal peer-reviewed, competitive research funding, Baldwin said.
Ramsey also didn't provide a list of projects paid for with earmarks.
But he said in a response Sept. 1 that most of the money has been used to build research space and that the earmarks helped increase federal funding for research from competitive grants by more than 200 percent.
In 2001-02, for example, U of L received an earmark of $1.2 million for the school's Birth Defects Center, he said. Since then, faculty have brought in about $5 million annually from competitive research funding.
Reporter Mark Pitsch can be reached at (502) 875-5136.
This agenda, though not groundbreaking, can turn politicians into legislators. A July 2006 Pew Research Center poll details voter frustration with Congress: 45 percent felt it has produced “less than usual.” Voters stand ready to reward — which is to say, re-elect — those who respect their wishes to tax and spend less. But out-of-control lobbying and an out-of-touch inside-the-Beltway culture begs the question, Will Congress give the people what they want? We’ll know in the next month.
