The 22 representatives and senators on the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittees constitute 4 percent of the total Congress, but their home states receive approximately 30 percent, or $241 million, of the $824 million of the pork in this year’s Energy and Water bill.  Coincidence?  We think not.  Total Energy and Water pork is up 45 percent in FY 2001 from the $569 million in last year’s bill.  Now that’s progress.  Some examples:

• Greenbriar River Basin, West Virginia: One resident of Marlinton, W.Va., in the heart of the Greenbriar River Basin, says “study after study” has been done since 1985 by the Army Corps of Engineers on how to control flooding in the area, but the place “still looks like Haiti.” Nothing has been built to curb flooding, the resident says.  This failure did not stop Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) from bragging about another $1 million he’s giving the Army Corps of Engineers to study the basin.  Since this year the allocation is under “General Construction” and not “General Investigation,” something may finally get done.  The real disaster is the flood of ill-gotten federal funds sent to West Virginia via Sen. Byrd.
• Mississippi Pork: Perhaps the most promiscuous porker on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee is Senator Thad Cochran (R- Miss.).  This year, Cochran snagged more than

     $50 million for 15 projects in his home state, making the $26 million he earmarked for Mississippi the previous year look downright measely.

• Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Devils (Lake) Advocate: The most expensive Army Corps of Engineers study will be done in North Dakota, thanks to Senate Energy and Water Appropriator Dorgan,who secured almost $4 million for an Army Corps of Engineers study at Devils Lake.
• Pastor’s Pork, Arizona: Arizona representative and appropriator Edward Pastor (D-Ariz.) earmarked $795,000 for three Army Corps of Engineers general investigations in his district.  According to a former staff member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, Corps of Engineers investigations often materialize due to political concerns rather than legitimate water concerns.
• Energy and Water in Nevada: Even though this is an Energy and Water bill, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attached $1 million for Nevada’s Cancer Registry and the Vital Statistics and Birth Defects Registry.  Reid also scored $3 million to establish a UNLV program for department-wide management of environmental, scientific, and medical electronic records. The cost of these two programs represent more than 25 percent of the $15.2 million that Reid, a member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee, secured in the bill.