Pork Alert: Senate Military Construction

(Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the Senate version of the fiscal year 2010 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act.  There are 96 projects worth $633.1 million in this year’s bill.  Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-N.D.) has five projects worth $26,940,000 and Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) took home five projects worth $25,045,000, equal to 8.2 percent of the total dollars in the bill.

The pork in the bill:

• $21,900,000 for two projects funding chapels:  $14,400,000 by Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee member Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for a chapel center at Fort Campbell (last year, four senators and three representatives got $630,000 for this project), and $7,500,000 by Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) for a chapel center at Dover Air Force Base.
• $8,900,000 by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) to upgrade the marshalling area at Fort Eustis in Virginia.  According to Sen. Webb’s website, some of these upgrades will include “paved vehicle staging and container storage areas, upgrade of existing rail, and security lighting.”  Fort Eustis was awarded $3.9 million last year by Reps. Robert Scott (D-Va.) and Robert Wittman (R-Va.) for a vehicle painting facility.
• $5,000,000 by Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee member Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for a chemical demilitarization project at the Blue Grass Army Depot.  Sen. McConnell explained on his website that the funding will ensure “the safe disposal of the chemical weapon stockpile at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky.”
• $2,000,000 by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for the Renewable Energy Sustainable Project in Carson City, which will focus on a plan to generate wind, solar, and geothermal projects.  However, according to a study published by the Heartland Institute in June, 2004, “generating electricity through wind power and other non-nuclear renewables costs twice as much as generating power from conventional sources.”

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

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