Pork Alert: Interior and Environment

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the Fiscal 2009 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.  There are 247 projects, costing taxpayers $134.9 million.

Here are some outrageous examples of wasteful spending that members of the House added into to the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act:

• $4.2 million for seven projects by House Interior Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), including:  $500,000 for the city of University Place for sewer infrastructure; $270,000 for a Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Study; and $200,000 for Mason County Courthouse restoration.
• $1 million by House Interior Subcommittee member Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) for the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative.  According to the National Bison Association, there are an estimated 20,000 bison remaining on public lands in the U.S. and Canada.
• $500,000 by House Interior Subcommittee member Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) for methamphetamine prevention in the Mark Twain National Forest.
• $350,000 by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), for the River Raisin Revolutionary War Battlefield.  This battle took place in 1813, long after the Revolutionary War ended.
• $150,000 by House appropriator Michael Simpson (R-Idaho) for the Rexburg Historic Westwood Theater.  The theater’s website notes it was “Opened in 1917 as the Rex Theater and through the years had various owners and operators.”  Additionally, “Although it is not on the National Register of Historic places, it is near the Madison County Courthouse which is on the Register.”
• $150,000 by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) for the Historic Mishler Theatre in Altoona, where the Holy Smoke Blues will be playing on August 15.  Their performance will be preceded by a group of taxpayers singing the blues over the proliferation of pork in Washington.

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

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