This year’s Agriculture Appropriations bills are ripe with pork.  The House and Senate versions together contain 256 projects totaling $246,376,600 that were either not requested in the President’s budget or that carried a price tag greatly exceeding the President’s request.  Before the conference committee submits its pork platter to the floors of Congress for final consideration, it should eliminate all earmarks trying to sneak their way into the final report.  Here are some of the more egregious projects hiding quietly in the appropriations bills, just waiting to fatten up the home districts of committee members:

• Steer Me the Money.  Senate appropriator Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) diverted $2,401,600 of unrequested federal funding to his home state, $200,000 of which is marked for the Alabama Beef Connection, one of several beef programs that sound a bit jerky.

• Milking the Treasury.  $3,235,000 for Senate Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl. Sen. Kohl (D-Wis.), who congratulated himself for appropriating $375,000 for Dairy Industry Revitalization, including mentoring for beginning farmers.  In an era of “strategic milk reserves” resulting from overproduction, dairy is probably the last industry in need of revitalization.  

• The Lesser of Two Weevils.  House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.) wants $4.7 million for programs conspicuously absent from both the Senate and President’s budget requests, including $500,000 for a diarepes/root weevil program.

• Double Threat (to Taxpayers).  Two members of the House Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee hail from New York: James Walsh (R-N.Y.) and Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.).  These bipartisan porkers have $4,967,000 worth of pork in the bill, including $500,000  for the National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Consortium.  Our beef with this program is that it’s pork. 

• Wheat Spending Gone A-Rye.  If Senate Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee member Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) has his way, $4,285,000 worth of pork will flow back home, including: $675,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute, a very BAAAAAD idea for taxpayers; and $452,000 to study sustainable pet management for dryland wheat.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.