Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) today announced that online voters have crowned the VelociRFTA – a dinosaur-themed earmark that continues to receive federal funding – the champion of Flake’s third annual #Egregious8 Tournament of Wasteful Spending. Since the congressional earmark ban went into effect in 2012, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded the Roaring Forks Transportation Authority (RFTA) $36 million to maintain this high-end rapid transit bus system between Aspen and Glenwood, Colo. that comes equipped with Wi-Fi, heated sidewalks, dinosaur footprints and even replica dinosaur eggs. The VelociRFTA, featured in Jurassic Pork – Flake’s 2015 oversight report on the continued cost of earmarked projects – began as an $810,000 earmark in 2010 and received another $24 million from DOT in 2011.

“If there’s one thing Jurassic pork knows how to do, it’s survive and advance. Clever girl,” said Flake.

Background: The March Madness-inspired #Egregious8 tournament is the yearly culmination of Flake's ongoing effort to highlight egregious and unnecessary federal spending through his oversight reports – Wastebook: The Farce Awakens, Jurassic Pork and Tackling Paid Patriotism – and his regularly recurring #PorkChops series.

While some projects and practices targeted by Sen. Flake in the past year have since been addressed – including eliminating millions of dollars for paid patriotism and freeing billions of dollars tied to old transportation earmarks – others continue to waste taxpayer dollars.

The 2016 #Egregious8 pitted eight of those items – including a $707,000 shrimp fight club, a $5 million tailgate package, and a $2 million effort to build jazz-playing robots – against each other and allow the public vote to advance the project they consider to be the most egregious waste of their tax dollars. To view the full 2016 lineup, click here.

Video of Flake rolling out the 2016 #Egregious8 on Fox & Friends can be viewed here.

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