Pork Alert:  Senate Interior Appropriations Bill

(Washington, D.C.) — As families across America pack their suitcases and get ready for summer vacations, Senate appropriators have loaded up the fiscal 2006 Interior Appropriations Act with $926 million worth of parochial projects to beautify their states for the tourist season.  The bill is scheduled to go to the Senate floor today.  Ignoring the president’s request for a lean budget, the Senate Appropriations Committee weighed down this year’s Interior bill with funding for programs slated for elimination, including $489.6 million in Environmental Protection Agency state and tribal assistance grants, and $10 million for the Bureau of Land Management’s Rural Fire Assistance Program.

Here is a sampling of some of the pork projects added by Senate appropriators:

Alaskan Wildlife.  Once again, Senate Interior Appropriations subcommittee member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) brought home the most amount of pork, a total of $68.5 million, including:  $25 million for grants to address drinking water and infrastructure needs in rural and native Alaskan communities; $1.8 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center for eider and sea otter recovery activities; $790,000 for the Bering Sea Fisherman’s Association; $150,000 for the Alaska Whaling Commission; and $98,000 for the Alaska Sea Otter Commission. 

Bacon for the Big Sky State.  Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) grabbed $33.4 million for Montana projects, including:  $2 million for the Fuels-in-schools biomass program; $1.25 million for the Western Heritage Center’s distance learning and tribal histories project; $1.4 million for whirling disease research; and $400,000 for a bear DNA sampling study. 

Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.  Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) piled $18.9 million in parochial pork in the Interior bill, including:  $3.65 million for projects at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park; $3.5 million for the New River Gorge National River; $2 million for the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium at West Virginia University; and $100,000 for the National Coal Heritage Area.

Peace Garden State.  Senate Interior Appropriations subcommittee member Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) added $10.2 million in pork projects for North Dakota, including:  $2 million for the Center for Air Toxic Metals at the University of North Dakota; $350,000 for leafy spurge eradication efforts; $200,000 for the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery for hatchery renovation; and $200,000 for the International Peace Gardens.  

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